Quotes from Richard Ashcroft

The music industry wants safe rock stars, people who are totally homogenised.

If I was a painter, I would have hundreds of finished and unfinished canvases in my studio waiting for people to see, and it is the same with my music. I've got so many pieces of music and songs waiting to be heard.

Life is about unforgettable and transcendent moments, isn't it? The point of music is to get the moment.

There's always one character, I think, in every town who's the obsessive who steals money to go and buy records.

I don't want to be responsible for messing up someone. I don't want to be responsible for that, because the things that happened in The Verve, it was heavy stuff. It was real. It wasn't just frivolous nonsense, you know what I mean? There was real people's lives.

My job is to make grown men cry, to blow people's minds and elevate them, make them transcend and unlock emotions that have been repressed by life, their job, situation - that's what I do.

When you go onstage, the process of getting you from the dressing room to the stage is all about ego.

The Richard Ashcroft of 1992 would have struggled to imagine the path my life has taken - he would be amazed at the changes in my song writing.

I've always felt like an outsider in this industry, but that sense of community - that sense of belonging with your fans - it's an amazing feeling, and it's really inspiring.

Glasgow Barrowlands is the greatest concert venue in the world.

We never had a stylist, so I always wore my own clothes.

I'm very lucky that I can walk on the stage before anyone in the world. And that's the thing: you've got to be pretty confident to go on after me. You've got to have the artillery, as I call it. And the artillery is your songs.

I'm a strong person, but every man has his limits.