I usually tell somebody if a song’s for them. I don’t always tell them if it’s about them.

Just start scribbling. The first draft is never your last draft. Nothing you write is by accident.

As long as people are listening that's all that matters.

I'm not David Bowie. Who are we kidding? At the end of the day, I'm the same person I've always been. I'm Don Garvey's son from up the road.

Maybe Radiohead and R.E.M. Even a group like the National - artists who have crossed over without compromising. It's a special thing.

We [Elbow] have had some luck with media syncs in film and on TV. We'd love to do a soundtrack with a really cool director.

The British press isn't as vicious as it used to be, and these days it's sort of cool to care again. Everyone loves an everyman anthem.

"Open Arms" has a lot of unison singing in it. And it works: Grown men will come to our gigs and cry during that one.

Freedom...is the act of releasing ourselves from the bondage of that which keeps us from living the life we were meant to live.

This is what happens. You tell your friends your most personal secrets, and they use them against you.

Do not attempt to hide things which cannot be hidden.

I try to teach my heart not to want things it cant have.

Nobody ever rioted for austerity.

The past isn't useful until its place in the present is found.

It took a while for her to figure out she could run but when she did she was long gone, Long gone.

Experience of life (not of books) is the only capital usable in such a book as you have attempted; one can make no judicious use of this capital while it is new.

Art is what we're doing when we do our best work.

One of the emphases of the new democratic order is no impunity.