“Its OK to grow up, just as long as you don't grow old. Face it you are young.”
“Anyone who thinks they're sexy needs their head checked.”
“Noise is an easy thing to hide behind. If you make a lot of noise and shout behind that, nobody can tell what you're singing.”
“I got a pair of red, synthetic satin women's pants through the post the other day with a phone number on. That was quite strange. I haven't tried the phone number. In times of stress I may.”
“The things in my songs are the edited highlights of my life. I don't go seeking out strange sexual experiences every day of the week.”
“Because if you give everything away then you become a kind of non-person.”
“I'd never really wanted to have a really 'private' life before. But when somebody starts delving into it and printing details through the tabloids for shagging people you shouldn't have shagged, then that probably made me shy away a bit more from giving too much away.”
“I like bossy girls. I don't like girls who just do whatever they think you want them to do, and follow you around trying to please you all the time.”
" I always thought that I might retire from any form of sexuality by the age of 40 and just become a dignified older person."
" Pornography takes all the reality out of sex and Disney does that to family life. "
"I’ve got to an age where I just can’t be arsed doing things that make me feel crap. So you may as well just do things that you enjoy. Say it doesn’t get you a multi-platinum album, at least you had a good time."
"I was watching telly and that Johnny Cash song came on ['Hurt']. But it was advertising Nike trainers, and that struck me as being a particularly inappropriate use of music"
"I used to look at older people who bothered to still attend nightclubs and couldn’t help but wonder why. Didn’t they realize how foolish they looked? Of course, now that I’m one of those people myself, I have decided that such rules don’t apply to me. "
"Within these walls the future may be being forged.
Or maybe Jez is getting trashed on cider.
But when you melt you become the shape of your surroundings.
Your horizons become wider.
Don't they teach you no brains at that school?"
Jarvis also tells us his greatest talent: “to sing and move my hands at the same time. It’s not something I’ve thought through; it’s not that I’m trying to do signing. But it’s nice – you can move your hands and shape the words. Shirley Bassey’s very good at it.”
"I guess lots of people have one particular incident that overshadows just about everything else they've done in your life. Although I don't regret it as a moral action, the fact it will be the first line in my obituary is just a little bit disappointing. I'd like to think I'd given more to the world."
"Even when we were deeply unsuccessful we used to cover the stage with tin foil or hang things from the stage. People used to take the piss out of us, but I always thought it defined it as a night that's not the same as every other night in that venue - I think it shows a bit of respect for your audience."
"I recently spent quite a bit of time in Sheffield, England, which is where I’m from. I wouldn’t move back there, but it’s funny when you spend a bit of time in the place where you were brought up. You kind of realize how that place has had quite a big effect on you or made you a certain way."
"I thought it would solve problems, that if I got famous everything would fall into place," he says. "I was very shy with girls. I thought if I got famous then girls would approach me." And it's true, they did, "but only crazy girls".
"It was a big thing for me. I certainly didn't want to be an absent father. My father disappeared and I know the effects of that. When I met him many years later there was nothing there. It wasn't like we were antagonistic but there wasn't a feeling of love or affection and that was a bit sad. I guess I'm determined not to allow that to happen with my son."
"The thing I like about music, and why I started to do it in the first place, is that I'm a fairly reserved person in normal life," he says, before he lifts a long leg on to the table. "It was always my chance, when I got on stage, to show off and come out of my shell a bit. It would be kind of stupid to deny myself that. Well, I can't help myself actually. I kind of do it to get excited."
Jarvis also tells us his greatest talent: “to sing and move my hands at the same time. It’s not something I’ve thought through; it’s not that I’m trying to do signing. But it’s nice – you can move your hands and shape the words. Shirley Bassey’s very good at it.”
"I guess lots of people have one particular incident that overshadows just about everything else they've done in your life. Although I don't regret it as a moral action, the fact it will be the first line in my obituary is just a little bit disappointing. I'd like to think I'd given more to the world."
"Even when we were deeply unsuccessful we used to cover the stage with tin foil or hang things from the stage. People used to take the piss out of us, but I always thought it defined it as a night that's not the same as every other night in that venue - I think it shows a bit of respect for your audience."
"I recently spent quite a bit of time in Sheffield, England, which is where I’m from. I wouldn’t move back there, but it’s funny when you spend a bit of time in the place where you were brought up. You kind of realize how that place has had quite a big effect on you or made you a certain way."
"I thought it would solve problems, that if I got famous everything would fall into place," he says. "I was very shy with girls. I thought if I got famous then girls would approach me." And it's true, they did, "but only crazy girls".
"It was a big thing for me. I certainly didn't want to be an absent father. My father disappeared and I know the effects of that. When I met him many years later there was nothing there. It wasn't like we were antagonistic but there wasn't a feeling of love or affection and that was a bit sad. I guess I'm determined not to allow that to happen with my son."
"The thing I like about music, and why I started to do it in the first place, is that I'm a fairly reserved person in normal life," he says, before he lifts a long leg on to the table. "It was always my chance, when I got on stage, to show off and come out of my shell a bit. It would be kind of stupid to deny myself that. Well, I can't help myself actually. I kind of do it to get excited."
