Richard Ashcroft Quotations

We're in a malaise. What do people really believe in any more apart from sport and music?

On the person who stole his guitar: "Whoever you are out there, you can safely take it back to Virgin and nothing will be done. Or you can find yourself floating in the River Mersey.

Chris Martin is a very kind guy who says a lot of things, but he isn't a Merlin an alchemist.

I have always given everything to the band and would have continued to do so if circumstances had not made it impossible.

To build public support for what they're doing, scientists are always going to say there is the prospect to cure all these horrible diseases, but they're cautious for the most part in saying when those cures will arrive.

I'm intrigued by all that, by religions, I'm intrigued by Jesus Christ. It's all fascinating.

Any true musician, true artist, knows that when they're in that point of total artistic creation, whether on stage or in the studio or writing or whatever, that's the closest moment [to creation]. And that's what keeps all these people addicted to getting back to that moment again.

I can't pin myself on any fixed religion, really. I'm just one of those sad, early-century people who just drifts around and picks up a bit of this and a bit of that. I was confirmed a Christian when I was a kid purely because I wanted a piece of jewelry, so I don't know whether this is just another extension of that.

I don't know if I have a problem expressing joy, but the difficulty is in making an album, a piece of music that really does reflect life rather than the one dimension. I have a problem in trying to make a complete trip record.

What do people really believe in any more apart from sport and music?

I'm one of those people. I can be sold by the candy in life, and then it can be stripped away within a split second and I feel like I've seen too much. And that's the way, I've been like that most of my life, so I could never say I was there yet in any stretch of the imagination.

Eyes open wide, looking at the heavens with a tear in my eye.

When you're in doubt about the future and you're in doubt about how solid this thing is that you're laying your life and your soul on the line for, you will probably retract into yourself a little bit and think, No, there's only so much I can give to something that everyone doesn't believe in. There's been chipping away, people have been chipping away at it, so it's just you in the spotlight in front of all these people.

Come back down to basics. The basic things of life, the basic things for me are the things that turn me on more than anything. I'm actually trying to go back from where I was running from...the more essential things that I was ignoring.