Quotes from Benjamin Clementine

The fact is, it wasn't enjoyable being in secondary school. I was a weird kid.

When I first started singing in Paris, I sounded horrible: I was just singing to get some money to eat. And I wasn't singing my own songs: it was Bob Dylan, Bob Marley, Jimi Hendrix. Eventually, when I wrote my own music, my style just came out of my own place.

Paris is very dear to me, and I'll never forget Paris.

Where you're from shapes you, but you can actually do whatever you want.

I dedicate all my time to music. And I'm glad that it's paying off in some ways.

Arizona - I've only spent a few days there, but it's inspired me the most. It's so peaceful.

People say my world is dark. No, there's a lot of lightness in my world. But I know very well that I'm not normal when I'm performing.

My heroes: Nick Cave, Tom Waits, Nina Simone.

In Paris, I was really singing for the sake of living. But eventually people said, 'Keep going; you've got a great voice,' and I started having confidence in my voice all of a sudden. That's when I started creating my own music.

My parents always said that I would be a lawyer or pilot or doctor - and I always just thought that's what I would do.

I know, deep down, that what makes my music what it is are my words. It always starts from me wanting to say something. Once I've run out of things to say, I'll be done.

I don't have a flat anywhere. I'm registered in the U.K. for tax purposes, I suppose, and my mail goes to my parents.

I'm from a middle class family but my father squandered all the money, so I didn't really run around with rich people. I was very judgmental towards a lot of them.

Happiness is overrated and money can't justify it.

I personally don't know what nerves are. I don't get scared when I'm going to play music. But I think something, maybe my fears, are buried into my songs. Because I'm singing them.

I didn't blend well with my classmates or my teachers.

I adopted this feeling that the stage is my home, so just keep my coat on and not wear anything else.

I like black a lot because I can't really see colors - so I wear a lot of dark-colored clothes. You've got to be aware of what you're wearing because you might become that.

I always try to be as discreet as possible, so I wear black.

I clearly remember my father cutting our jumpers and our sports clothes with scissors - because he didn't want us to wear jogging bottoms and hoodies. He thought that would somehow set the police on us.

I'm from London, and you hardly see stars because of the pollution of light. But in Arizona, there's nothing, so I can see the stars.

The minute I stop singing, I'm back to being shy. I'm soft-spoken because I never really talked to people. I didn't learn to do it.

With this sort of career, you need determination. You've got to sacrifice a lot of things: family, friends - not that I had any - but you sacrifice everything.

If I win the Mercury Prize, I'll be very honoured. If I don't win it, I won't have lost it. Someone else will have won it. And that will also be good.