Quotes from Terence Trent D'Arby

Our society and media have lost touch with the job of the artist. The job of the artist has been subordinated to the job of the record seller.

My 12 years in Los Angeles were hell! But I was sent to study hell and to learn as much from it as I could because there is no other place like hell for a full and complete education.

My album is better than 'Sgt. Pepper.'

When I lived in England my perception of what people thought of me was largely formed by the media.

To carry a false persona is an extra burden. Who needs that?

We can tend to be too ambitious when we're young, and a little blind.

I don't think there is anyone I've ever met who has been more passionate about music than me, but rock 'n' roll has never been about just music. It is music, attitude, personality, persona, myth, legend.

There are no calculations in the records I make. I record as many songs as I can. Songs that I think are my best.

I just happened to be in Paris during one of the fashion weeks and was out one night at a table with a few supermodels. I was sitting next to Michael Hutchence of INXS and at one point I turned to him and said, 'I feel like the meat in a supermodel sandwich.'

I have a gut instinctive feeling that I will be as massive as Madonna, as massive as Michael Jackson... Whitney Houston, sure.

I change a lot. It's not easy to size me up. There are a lot of conflicts inside.

The version I got of Christianity was quite confusing to me, even as a child, because there were certain things that didn't add up.

If you state the obvious long enough, other people will pick up on what you're talking about and examine it. And usually they'll swallow it.

I believe every major strength we have can be used against us as a weakness. At the same time, things that people see as weakness can be part of our strength.

I know that some people view me as a bit manufactured. But I can't be Whitney Houston: somebody who is polite and perfect and appeals to your mother and your grandfather.

You can't expect a poodle to guard your house the way a Doberman pinscher does, and you can't expect a Doberman pinscher to jump in your lap the way a poodle does. Some people are just animals of a certain nature, and they are always going to have certain impulses that motivate them.

I seem to have been possessed by a mind of my own and I did not merely want to be a pop product, but I wanted to be an artist which was always my ambition.

It's imperative that I have another channel to pour ideas into, that have been with me for quite a while, that it would be hard for people to kind of accept on first listen. Some of that would be more classically based stuff and some more jazz based.

That's all I think my job is, to make my own contribution.

Everyone has a cross to bear. Sometimes I have to take the splinters out of my shoulders.

I don't want to be just the latest curiosity.

I think it is safe to say, as a huge fan of music, that between 1967 and 1972 was the renaissance of rock music. That's when all the forces combined together-the talent that was available and the freedom for the artists. The industry hadn't become so gigantic.

Children are born with pureness, and gradually become distracted with all the little pressures going on.

It wasn't necessarily my choice to disappear.