Quotes from Pete Burns

My behavioural problems are non-existent because all my freakiness, I guess, is manifested in a visual way. And I never have come unravelled.

I never wanted credit for being a wonderful person or a great human being or looking peculiar. I just wanted credit for the music.

I'm not interested in gigs unless I really want to do them. I walked away from music in 1997, and then there was a greatest hits in 2002. Thank God, it didn't do too well because the record company wouldn't promote it.

I never had posters on my walls, and I didn't have any icons, either. I come from a small village in Wirral, and my family didn't watch TV. I wasn't exposed to people with icon status. David Bowie popped up, but I had already shaved my eyebrows off by the time I saw his.

I'm not a camp, throwaway queen; I'm not in Neverland. I'm not Jennifer Lopez with three people to pluck my eyebrows. I've made myself what I want to be - not everybody's cup of tea. And people wanna have a look at me. I fully accept that. People have always wanted to have a look at me.

I don't wanna look like a 65-year-old geezer, you know, and I can't really see it happening.

What I'm trying to achieve with my surgery is my own personal satisfaction. It's narcissism.

It's not a matter of vanity; it's a matter of sanity. I'll never look forever young, but I'll look as best as I possibly can; I'll look surreal.

I was brought up with an incredible amount of freedom and creativity.

I had piercings all over my face, which did look dreadful, but I got them done while waiting for my husband Michael to get a tattoo. I was bored.

I'm not trying to be a girl by putting on a dress - gender is separated by fabric.

It was a lovely feeling, dying. I can remember being in the hospital, all wired up to tubes and thinking, 'If only you'd take these tubes out, it feels so nice.' It felt so - it felt like being in a bath of velvet. It was such a nice feeling. Everything felt so soft and floppy, and I wanted to go.

There was one point where my mother was dying of lung cancer, and a journalist dressed up as a nurse and got in the house to get a picture of her, dying of lung cancer and stuff like that, and then you realise the fame's not all it's cracked up to be.

I hope when I'm 80 that I get to Heaven and God doesn't recognise me.

I'm not really the sort to reflect or look forward. I prefer concentrating on the now.

On reflection, I think the 1980s were a dreadful, abysmal time.

Over the years, I've had to learn how to deal with people who refuse to take me seriously. That's where I learnt the blunt side of my character.

In 1997, a severe depression hit me, but I didn't respond well to anti-depressants.

What a lot of people don't realise about me is that I have no idea what's going on in the media. I don't pay any attention to it, as I consider it mind pollution. The last time I touched a computer was in 2001, and my phone is too old to use the Internet. I just don't enter into it at all on any level.

From a child, I knew I didn't have the face I wanted to have. My mother was a baroness. She was from Berlin; she was a silent movie actress and friends with Marlene Dietrich. So she knew all about film make-up and prosthetics and stuff like that and what they used to do in those days. And she taught me all that as a child.

You shouldn't inflict yourself on the public when your fifteen minutes is up.

I collect items like Elvis Presley clock radios and '50s memorabilia. It inspires a lot of my imagery. I like tasteful trash.

Vegetarianism -- You are what you eat, and who wants to be a lettuce?

The trouble is that people are all too ready to jump to conclusions about anybody who they think looks a bit strange. They think you must be mentally subnormal.