Kate Bush
I have a theory that there are still parts of our mental worlds that are still based around the age of between five and eight, and we just kind of pretend to be grown-up.Collection: Age
But I don't have a very good track record with royalty. My dress fell off in front of Prince Charles at the Prince's Trust, so I'm just living up to my reputation.Collection: Trust
Sometimes when I'm going to the supermarket to get the coffee and cat litter, I get freaked out and see all these people staring, and you turn around and there's, like, 40 people all looking at you... and when you go around the corner, they're all following you! You start freaking out like a trapped animal.
I think we all feel geeky at times, don't we? Isn't that all a part of the wonderful tapestry of life?
I don't aim for perfection. But I do want to try and come up with something interesting.
I think it's important that things are flawed.
I think quotes are very dangerous things.
My first Top of the Pops I didn't want to do. I was terrified. I'd never done television before. Seeing the video afterwards was like watching myself die.
I'll always be tough on myself.
I'm the shyest megalomaniac you're ever likely to meet.
My parents weren't keen on the giving up of school at the beginning to go into singing and dancing, but once they saw I was serious about it, they gave support. I was quite stubborn about my decision, and in the end, they realised it was for the best.
Quite understandably, people think that if there's a six-year gap or whatever, that it's taken me six years to make the album. It's not really like that at all.
The music industry is in such poor shape; it's in a really bad way, and a lot of people in the industry are very depressed.
It's so fascinating to think about how each snowflake is completely individual - there are millions and millions of them, but each one is so unique.
The more I got into presenting things to the world, the further it was taking me away from what I was, which was someone who just used to sit quietly at a piano and sing and play. It became very important to me not to lose sight of that.
I think that there's always room for humour in music. It's something that always takes itself so seriously, which I think is a bit of a shame.
Writing, film, sculpture, music: it's all make-believe, really.
We have such little mystery in our lives generally because of how we live now. I mean, of course, mystery is all around us, but the way we live our lives now, we're too busy to be bothered with it.
School was a very cruel environment, and I was a loner. But I learnt to get hurt, and I learnt to cope with it.
I'm a very strong person, and I think that's why, actually, I find it really infuriating when I read, 'She had a nervous breakdown' or 'She's not very mentally stable, just a weak, frail little creature.'
It's not my ambition to be a big star.
I think snow is so evocative and has such a powerful atmosphere.
I guess what all artists want is for their work to touch someone or for it to be thought provoking.
I was aware of a lot of my friends being into things I wasn't into. Like sarcasm. It had never been a part of my family - they still don't use sarcasm.
What I've tended to do is to use my own experiences to get into someone else's mind, like in Wuthering Heights.
It's not important to me that people understand me.
I had friends but I was spending a great deal of my time alone and for me that was vital because there's an awful lot you learn about yourself when you're alone.
I've read a couple of things that I was sort of close to having a nervous breakdown. But I don't think I was. I was very, very tired. It was a really difficult time.
I think probably the only thing that is around in these songs is that I was really lonely when I wrote a lot of them. But it was really by my own choosing because I was devoting myself to songwriting and dancing and I wasn't really going out and seeing people.
For me, having a child is a really great responsibility because you've got something there that is depending on you for information and love until a certain age when it goes to school.
For the last 12 years, I've felt really privileged to be living such a normal life. It's so a part of who I am.
Clothes are such a strong part of who a human being is.
There is a figure that is adored, but I'd question very strongly that it's me.
I suppose I do think I go out of my way to be a very normal person, and I just find it frustrating that people think that I'm some kind of weirdo reclusive that never comes out into the world.
If I could make albums quicker, I'd be on a roll wouldn't I? Everything just seems to take so much time. I don't know why. Time... evaporates.
I don't listen to my old stuff very often at all.
One of the main reasons for wanting to perform live again was to have contact with that audience.
Thanks to everyone who's encouraged and supported my work over the years.
There's always ideas buzzing around, but it's whether they actually end up materialising into a song.
I definitely don't think of myself as being an influence.
I work in a very contained environment, usually.
The freedom you feel when you're actually in control of your own music is fantastic.
That's what all art's about - a sense of moving away from boundaries that you can't in real life. Like a dancer is always trying to fly, really - to do something that's just not possible. But you try to do as much as you can within those physical boundaries.
I could find faults with all my albums because that's just a part of being an artist - it's hard being a human being, isn't it?
I didn't really feel that there were any filler tracks on 'The Red Shoes,' but if I were to do that album now, I wouldn't make it so long.
The great thing about vinyl is that if you wanted to get a decent-sounding cut, you could really only have 20 minutes max on each side.
I hear odd tracks from my albums every now and again on the radio, or maybe a friend plays me something.
People said I couldn't gig, and I proved them wrong.
Originally, when I wrote the song 'The Sensual World' I had used text from the end of 'Ulysses.' When I asked for permission to use the text, I was refused, which was disappointing.
My life and my work are very interlocked. That's partly why I like to keep my private life private.