TONY WILSON

I am not a piece of hash. I'm in charge of Factory Records. I think.

Jazz is the last refuge of the untalented. Jazz musicians enjoy themselves more than anyone listening to them does.

There is no celebrity quite as powerful as the local, homegrown celebrity.

Richard Branson once said: 'Tony's very good at selling bands and he's very good at making television programmes. But he'll never be great at either, until he decides which one he wants to do.' I entirely accept that. That doesn't matter to me very much. I like the irony of the two lives.

I'm a minor player in my own life story.

Energy, energy? Energy is, is, it's nothing more than a lot of new age hokum masquerading as religion.

Every band needs it's own special chemistry. And Bez was a very good chemist.

The special relationship between the region and a regional celebrity means that people feel that they have a special investment in you.

I've been a minor celebrity since I was 23 years old.

In the '80s, we played the Roxy and the Whiskey with our bands.

I am very much an only child, meaning I am self-reliant, egocentric, sociable. I had my mother, father, and an uncle who lived with us, all doting on me.

It's hard to describe how bloody awful music was, how desperately bad it was, how our 1960s heroes had become boring and useless. Not only were they bad - they were badly dressed.

You either make money, or you make history.

Even though the hero of emo is Morrissey, the great song of emo is 'Love Will Tear Us Apart.' An emo soundtrack would introduce Joy Division's music to a whole new generation.

People shouting abuse has happened for a very long time, and I find it kind of amusing and irrelevant.

You don't know reality until someone makes a fiction of it. Reality needs the completion of fiction.

My public image is none of my business.

We had a heroic attitude to artistic freedom, and we thought normal contracts were a bit vulgar - somehow not punk. But that was the whole point - we weren't a regular record label.

I had the virtue of wanting to hang out with people who were more talented than me. I can't write songs, I can't perform, I can't design clubs, but I was an enthusiast. My gift was that I said yes to everybody.

Maybe the worst thing is not caring what people think. That came from my mother. She was the biggest influence on my life.

I hate English kids rapping - complete crap.

I'm going to be the next David Frost.

I have this problem that I just like to get a reaction from people.

Factory Records would not have existed and my life would not have been what it was without Joy Division.

I don't mind the fact that people hate me. Nobody likes anyone who's been on the telly as long as I have.