Everything distracted me, but most of all myself.
I thought to myself that he contained a whole universe that I had yet to know.
I have vague memories, like impressions on glass plates...
I don’t think people should do biopics of living people. I’m totally opposed to that.
We went our separate ways, but within walking distance of one another.
We learned we wanted too much. We could only give from the perspective of who we were and what we had. Apart, we were able to see with even greater clarity that we didn’t want to be without each other.
Robert was concerned with how to make the photograph, and I with how to be the photograph.
Within that moment was trust, compassion, and our mutual sense of irony. He was carrying death within him and I was carrying life. We were both aware of that, I know.
Writing is not some quiet, closet act.
My introduction to photography and a lot of how I developed aesthetically was through ’50s and early-’60s fashion magazines like Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue.
My mother and father had so many ups and downs and stayed with each other and helped each other. My mother took in ironing and she was a waitress. My father was working in the factory and he did people’s tax returns.
My father’s mother was from Liverpool and she had this very beautiful English china. I only wanted to drink my cocoa out of my grandmother’s cup and saucer.
I always wear the same thing onstage.
One of my great goals when I first started taking photographs or showing them publicly is that people might want one for over their desk. That’s my goal.
More than anything, that’s been the thread through my life – the desire to write, the impulse to write. I mean, it’s taken me other places, but it was the impulse to write that led me to singing.
I hate to be enclosed. I don’t like bathroom doors – I don’t shut them. In fact, in my house, I have no doors.
It’s not that I have compromised or anything, but it’s always been important to me to take good care of myself and be a good example. I’m not much a role model in terms of hair care, though.
It’s no secret – I love detective fiction. One of the reasons I love being in London is because I like to watch all the shows on TV. I watch them all.
In 1974, when I started working with the material that became ‘Horses,’ a lot of our great voices had died. We’d lost Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison and Janis Joplin, and people like Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King and Malcolm X.
I was never a singer; I can’t play any instruments; I had no training. Plus, I was brought up in a time when all the great rock stars were male. I didn’t have any template for what I was doing. I did what I did out of frustration and concern.