John Grant
The rejection I received when I was young for being a homosexual... that's nothing compared to the number you do on yourself when you've been taught that you are not a human like other people.
I love patchwork quilts. But not in music.
I love a lot of different styles, but my heart belongs in electronic music.
I really do feel like music is the only thing that I can do.
I'm not a big punk fan, but I love a good, solid screamer.
If I had a good scream, like Frank Black, I'd be doing punk music, 'cos I love that.
In order to not have to deal with being gay in the world, you have to control everything. You try and walk in an un-gay way so as not to be found out. You try to control every situation, check the people around you, that you're not in the wrong place, and that can be exhausting. It goes on for decades, and it becomes mental sickness.
I can't create music if I'm wearing a mask and not being myself, and that was the problem with The Czars.
If 'Queen Of Denmark' was about my childhood, then 'Pale Green Ghosts' is definitely about my adolescence, and that period was completely dominated by electronic music.
'Ernest Borgnine' is sort of my version of Woody Allen's 'Purple Rose Of Cairo' in that it's about the occasional difficulty of coming to terms with the cold hard facts and the temptation to escape into another world - like movies, for example. I'm a pro at escaping.
I don't know about the totally happy album, though. I don't know if that will ever come from me.
I seem to be very attracted to strong female personalities in acting and music.
My mother was a very sweet soul and a beautiful person, but she had a lot of fear.
It's always been my goal to have backing singers.
I think the humor, when applied in the right amount, only serves to intensify the other emotions in a given song; it highlights them, makes them stand out.
Sometimes I wish I was one of those artists like David Bowie. They're not putting their private lives out there; it's about show and entertainment. But an alter ego is very dangerous for me. Because I am the guy who will become lost in that.
I don't want to leave the house, and I don't want to settle down.
I feel uncomfortable when I think about my father listening to my records, because I don't want to hurt him.
Do you know the solo at the end of 'Why Don't You Love Me Any More?' that sounds like a chainsaw breaking through? That is what I can't do with my voice. That's when you hear how painful this has been to me.
The thing is I don't feel like my story is special. I don't feel like it's different to anybody else.
The only difficult thing is learning to recognise the interesting bits from those millions of moments life provides you with every day and writing down those snippets.
If I'm honest, I suppose there's something I don't want people to see in my eyes. They really are the window to the soul.
I loved the whole New Romantic, New Wave thing... New Order, Soft Cell, Depeche Mode, Gary Numan, Blancmange, Yazoo.
There's an incredible amount of pain involved in being a human, but this humorous stuff is essential in overcoming it.
Being embraced by the British people is a beautiful compliment for me. It feels very special.
The lion's share of what I listened to in the Eighties, what really affected me, was coming from Britain.
I have to strip away all the layers when I'm writing the song. I have to cut through all these layers of years of putting up walls and putting protective layers around myself.
I feel like, in the Czars, for example, I was afraid. I couldn't express myself. I didn't have a connection to myself. That's one of the huge reasons why it was such a difficult existence. I put a lot of that on myself. I couldn't access myself. I couldn't look at myself, because I was too ashamed.
When I write my songs, I'm writing about the pain, the joy, and the ridiculousness of being a human.
I don't feel like I'm writing music for gay people. I'm a gay man who is writing music about one tiny little experience of what it's like to be a human on this planet.
I come from a position where it seems like I have an addictive quality to everything in my life.
I've kept going to therapy to find out why my perspective is so skewered and why I'm filled with rage. It's so I can live in this world alongside these other people who seem to be what is desired and what the world wants.
The lead character in 'Adaptation' is pretty much me but with more talent. Every time I watch 'Adaptation,' I feel very emotional because it makes me be kinder to myself and see the human situation a little more clearly.
You can only be you, and there are plenty of people out there who wouldn't have you be any other way.
I'm very proud that I have learned German and Russian. Especially Russian, because of how difficult and beautiful it is and because of how much I struggled in the beginning to get my head around how it works.
I spent many years trying to fit in and do things the way I thought I was supposed to - trying to be perceived the way I thought people wanted to see me. I grew up in a very religious household and wasn't taught to feel comfortable or good about my sexuality, so it feels great to be able to say things the way I want to say them.
It's not like we wanted to talk about the fact that we're gay all the time, but the world has forced it to be an issue.
I had never considered myself a political guy, but there are certain things I can't shut up about. When I hear people say things like, 'If 'we' allow gays to marry, then people will want to marry animals and children,' I can't just stand there.
Madeline Kahn is one of my favourite people in the entire world and one of the funniest. She was a talented Broadway star and also sang opera.
When I came out, I found I hadn't been born with the right genes. It's quite brutal. If you're beautiful and you have the right genes, then the gay scene is a place where you can be worshipped. But if you don't, it's a different ball of wax.
People have always painted me like a pessimist, like somebody who sees the glass half-empty. But I think the fact that I keep showing up and saying, 'No, there must be a way for me to live in this world,' that shows I'm an eternal optimist.
I can only live in the world of truth, inasmuch as I'm able to be truthful with myself at any given point, on any given day.
The 1980s were all about synths for me, and it never went away after that.
I don't cry easily.
What brands can do brilliantly is broker change in people's lives.Collection: Business
All any grownup expects of an adolescent is that he act like an adult and be satisfied to be treated like a child.Collection: Children
A bad forgery's the ultimate insult.Collection: Insult
When I announced on my Facebook page that I'm coming to Israel, people started telling me that I shouldn't go there, but I figured that if I'm not going to come here, then I guess I can't go back to the United States anymore and I can never go to Russia again and I should probably never go back to Germany and I should probably never go back to France and I should probably never go back to England....All I see here is a really beautiful city.Collection: Beautiful
The country's newest aquarium, opened in November, bills itself as the largest in the world, holding more than 100,000 animals representing 500 species. It is the first in the USA to display whale sharks, the largest fish in the world.Collection: Country