Robert Smith
I despise people who revel in the ignorance of not being able to play their instrument.
I'm not a morose person; it's just that my best songs reflect on the sadder aspects of life.
I wouldn't want to think people doted on us, hung on every word, or wanted to look like us.
It's only people that aren't goths that think the Cure are a goth band.
I think the rock'n'roll myth of living on the edge is a pile of crap.
There were only two times in my life when I've actually felt down about things and gotten myself into a full mental mess. One of the times was in 1982. I had a horrible time for a few months and felt pretty desperate. Then again in 1984, for various reasons, not all of them within my control. Since then, I just wander in and out of black moods.
Nobody notices me. Nobody thinks I'm me. But then I look less like me than most of the people coming to our concerts.
I wore makeup when I was at school, and I wore makeup when glam started. I started wearing it again when punk started. I've always been drawn to wearing it. It's partly ritualistic, partly theatrical and partly just because I think I look better with it on.
Refusing to grow up is like refusing to accept your limitations. That's why I don't think we'll ever grow up.
You don't really know a song until you play it live.
There's no hope of me becoming completely relaxed on stage. If I did, I'd sit down and doze off.
They may not like us, but they can't get away from knowing who we are.
I honestly don't class myself as a songwriter. I've got 'musician' written on my passport. That's even funnier.
I became an adult in an extreme way. I was recently sorting some old photographs and I found another.
If you acquiesce to one interview, there's always another waiting in the wings. Also if you're interviewed repeatedly, you just start repeating yourself. I don't like to do that.
I'm not really obsessed with death.
I write with a pen and paper. Never on a laptop.
If any of our songs ever did make it on the top ten, I'd disband the group immediately.
I'd like to record somewhere really different. Rent a really big house and get a mobile in and set up in the dining room. Maybe New England; it'd be nice in September or October.
I'm not going to worry about the Cure slipping down into the second division; it doesn't bother me because I never expected to be in the first division anyway.
You can't drink on an eight hour flight, pass out, and then go onstage... well you can, but then you're Spandau Ballet.
I married somebody who likes the way I look. If I changed my hair every year, and I reinvented myself in time-honoured pop fashion, I think understandably the person I'm married to would grow slightly sick of me.
Like I can't cry for myself so I will let this song take all of the things inside I can't let anyone else see and offer it up, as if the sound were some kind of god, and my pain is some kind of sacrifice.
It's really nice meeting people after a concert. Still, it's very weird to be at the center of a group of 30 people all listening to what you're saying. When that group turns into 300 people, it goes on from weird. Some people revel in it, and I don't.
When you're on stage, the real world just drops away for that time. It's pretty intense.
When punk came along, I found my generation's music. I grew up listening to the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and Pink Floyd, 'cause that was what got played in the house. But when I first saw the Stranglers, I thought, 'This is it.'
When you're in a young band for the first time, geographically you're in the same place and you tend to go out and socialize. You play more shows, you spend more time together. You're a unit. As you grow older, inevitably you develop a life outside the band. I think it would be tragic if you didn't.
If I put a value on my music, and no one's prepared to pay that, then more fool me, but the idea that the value is created by the consumer is an idiot plan; it can't work.
My earliest memories are sitting on the beach at Blackpool, and I know that if I went back, it would be horrible. I know what Blackpool's like - it's nothing like I imagined it was as a child.
I just don't feel comfortable anymore with the kind of attention that I'm getting. It's purely the numbers of people that want a bit of the Cure or want a bit of me.
Hendrix was the first person I had come across who seemed completely free, and when you're nine or 10, your life is entirely dominated by adults. So he represented this thing that I wanted to be. Hendrix was the first person who made me think it might be good to be a singer and a guitarist - before that I wanted to be a footballer.
I don't care where the Cure is placed in the pantheon of rock. I don't care if we're perceived as relevant. We're never worried how we fit in. I don't even want to fit in.
I never liked Queen. I can honestly say I hated Queen and everything that they did.
Irony is the recourse of the weak-minded wimp, I think. I hate bands that deliver their songs with knowing smiles on their faces, so that if those songs fall flat they can say 'Ah well, we never really meant it anyway.' It's so dishonest.
Anyone can rehearse and play constantly any song in the world.
I've got a Facebook page, but I've never put anything on it. I've got a presence on all the social networks, in fact, but I've never once sent a message. I'm there because, otherwise, someone's going to pretend to be me.
It has always seemed slightly uncomfortable, the idea of politicised musicians. Very few of them are clever enough to do it; if they're good at the political side, the music side suffers, and vice versa.
The idea of reinvention has always seemed bizarre to me.
Performing doesn't come that naturally to me, even though I've done it for years.
Without faith that there's a world beyond the one we live in, I don't see how it's possible to get rid of angst.
I've discovered special makeup by a company called M.A.C. You could wear it on the surface of the sun and it wouldn't move.
But everyone I know reaches a point where they throw out their arms and go beserk for a while; otherwise you never know what your limits are. I was just trying to find mine.
I just play Cure music, whatever that is.
I don't want The Cure to fizzle out doing 45-minute shows of greatest hits. That would be awful for our legacy.
I don't dislike my peers because they're still around and remind me of what I'm doing. I never liked them anyway. I never liked U2, the things they've done over the years.
My whole life I've played music for my own personal enjoyment and the idea of it becoming a machine or a business is just horrible.
Each time I play a song it seems more real.
See the ridiculous in everything.Collection: Crazy
It's a perfect day for letting go.Collection: Letting Go