ROY HARPER

At school, I was always daydreaming and fiddling in inkwells, but I had to learn to grow up and become articulate. And doing that was what brought me into writing songs. It's like therapy for me, because it exposes what I'm really thinking.

I'm careful, controlled, bodily conservative: if someone offered me a pill I'd only ever take a half.

When I was 15, I was wearing sandals and corduroys, Guernsey, striped pullover, a beard that was hardly there, shades and a beret, and the goal was hanging out.

It's fantastic to put your hands in the earth. I enjoy spending my time in heaven here. I don't care what you say, this is my heaven.

Don't shift because fashion has shifted. Don't move from the original ethic you had, the original reasons. They're part and parcel of you.

I'd just like to prove to myself that I'm all here and all together and can get the best out of myself. I'd also like to prove that to a couple of other people.

If humanity was still in the feral state, we wouldn't have any need for these huge conurbations that we have now, that have turned us into a different bunch all together. In the feral state we would be much more secure, much more familiar with each other, much more mentally well-balanced.

In some ways, I lament the introduction of civilisation on such a huge scale, because it has given us a lot of room to abuse each other, which we continue to do.

I was determined if I was going to become a superstar it would be on my terms. I've had that ethic since the beginning.

I'm inspired by the poets, so I'm always going to give in that direction, rather than in any other. It's the making of me... and also the downfall of me.

I got into trad jazz, then modern jazz, then avant-garde jazz, between the ages of 16 to 18.

Every song has a bouquet, which is the music. If you can put words with something that is really apt, then you've done it.

I wanted to modernize music, but more than that, to completely modernize people's attitudes towards life in general.

I'm careful, controlled, bodily conservative: if someone offered me a pill I'd only ever take a half.

As a really young child, I was listening to the echoes of the age before, music hall and stuff like that, as well as classical bits on the radio.

It's fantastic to put your hands in the earth. I enjoy spending my time in heaven here. I don't care what you say, this is my heaven.

I was determined if I was going to become a superstar it would be on my terms. I've had that ethic since the beginning.

Don't shift because fashion has shifted. Don't move from the original ethic you had, the original reasons. They're part and parcel of you.

I'm an amalgam of the 19th-century romantics and the beat poets.

When I was 15, I was wearing sandals and corduroys, Guernsey, striped pullover, a beard that was hardly there, shades and a beret, and the goal was hanging out.

In cities, people go to work and all walk there together, like some arterial flow. And there's a certain desolation about it, an alienation that we all experience.

If humanity was still in the feral state, we wouldn't have any need for these huge conurbations that we have now, that have turned us into a different bunch all together. In the feral state we would be much more secure, much more familiar with each other, much more mentally well-balanced.

I was never really a bone fide member of the folk scene.

I've taken a stand against religion for as long I've been able to write and think.

I've seen such things as you would not believe. I've seen motorbikes driven down hotel corridors - and had a go myself.

In some ways, I lament the introduction of civilisation on such a huge scale, because it has given us a lot of room to abuse each other, which we continue to do.

I'm inspired by the poets, so I'm always going to give in that direction, rather than in any other. It's the making of me... and also the downfall of me.

I'd just like to prove to myself that I'm all here and all together and can get the best out of myself. I'd also like to prove that to a couple of other people.

As soon as I heard skiffle, I loved it and I knew that I wanted to play it.

What is our destiny? Does it matter? Is it bound up with 'our' planet? In my opinion, yes.

Remember, this was a world that was still ethnically separated. I was thirteen and ignorant of the social situation in America, but I felt these records were better than what my own culture was turning out.

I'm attending to my legacy, making sure that it travels the universe in the best shape I can get it into. For as long as I'm alive, I'll still be its interpreter.

At school, I was always daydreaming and fiddling in inkwells, but I had to learn to grow up and become articulate. And doing that was what brought me into writing songs. It's like therapy for me, because it exposes what I'm really thinking.

I regret that I've never actually managed to be inspired enough to get into anything else, and I should've been, I really should have been, because the piano can be a wonderful instrument. But I'm afraid that my inspiration is just purely on the words... and it's gonna stay there.