Quotes from George Michael

I'm not stupid enough to think that I can deal with another 10 or 15 years of major exposure. I think that is the ultimate tragedy of fame... People who are simply out of control, who are lost. I've seen so many of them, and I don't want to be another cliche.

Marriage still means a lot more in the country I come from than it does here. I don't think there's anything to be gained by it for the couple. But for children I think it's an important thing.

Take back your picture in a frame. Take back your singing in the rain. I just hope you understand sometimes the clothes do not make the man.

Even though it's become a really cliched thing to see musicians working for charity, it's still effective and it still has to be done.

If I can just live further from the spotlight I think that'll be better for all really.

I thought I had fallen in love with a woman a couple of times. Then I fell in love with a man, and realised that none of those things had been love.

There are so many things and so many aspects to gay life that I've discovered and so many things to write about. I have a new life, and I have a new take on dance music because of that life.

I realised those things my ego needed - fame and success - were going to make me terribly unhappy. So I wrenched myself away from that. I had to. I had to walk away from America and say goodbye to the biggest part of my career because I knew, otherwise, my demons would get the better of me.

With pop stars or film stars, we become the object of people's self-definition, as well as the object of sexual definition.

I'm not a novelty act from the '80s in most parts of the world.

Anybody who fights for human rights or to make this world a better place. Nurses, doctors, teachers: these are the people who deserve the credit these days.

I do want people to know that the songs that I wrote when I was with women were really about women. And the songs that I've written since have been fairly obvious about men.

I want to make a pop album - something more upbeat than my stuff was in the '90s.

I have to believe that somebody up there thinks I've still got some work to do.

I can't believe that I've written my best work yet. If I believed that, then I wouldn't bother releasing music anymore.

My American gay audience have continued to dance and sing to the music I make in a way that straight Americans haven't. I am grateful to them for that.

I'm 10-12 years into life as an out gay man, and I'm a different person. I think there are things about my journey that might be useful to other people, and coming up with a hit record on its own doesn't seem to be enough anymore.

It takes so much strength to say to your ego, 'You know what? You're going to keep me lonely, so I have to ignore you.'

For some strange reason, my gay life didn't get easier when I came out. Quite the opposite happened, really.

Of course, I want to sell this record - there's no point making it otherwise.

I had to walk away from America, and say goodbye to the biggest part of my career, because I knew otherwise my demons would get the better of me.

Deep down, my ego always thought that I would outlast a lot of people that I was competing against.

I've achieved what every artist wants, which is that some of their work will outlive them.

When you are trying to express things with metaphors and much more subtlety, that's when you are doing yourself a disservice by making a video.