You're in a band with someone, it doesn't necessarily mean you're going to agree with everything they think or do.
— Boy George
I forgive very easily, and I suppose, in the same way, I expect to be forgiven very easily as well. I grew up with that.
I was never a wallflower - I put my head on the style chopping block.
To me, I think of the '70s as being this glorious decade where I discovered who I was and discovered all these amazing things... punk rock, electro music, fashion, all of that.
There are lots of things about me that have changed. Some things are a process; some things take time.
I'd rather they call me a national treasure than a national waste of time. And yes, it does feel good, but I've had to earn it.
When you're successful, people have no sympathy. Nobody wants to catch the tears of a millionaire.
I don't listen to the radio, so I don't really know what's going on in current pop culture. I know about the obvious things, like Taylor Swift and Justin Bieber and Ed Sheeran and Adele, because I hear them. They're everywhere.
Adele is selling millions of records, and everybody tries to sing like Adele.
It's funny that I'm so popular with seven-, eight-, nine-year-olds.
I think there's something really powerful about being yourself.
In a way, we're going backwards. In the early '80s, it was like all these huge strides, and everything was more free and easy. I think we're going back. I don't know if it's the economics or what, but things are getting more right-wing, definitely.
There's a guy in London named Ben Cohen who is doing great things. In a way, we need people like Ben - we need straight guys to come out and say, 'What're you worried about? Get over yourself.' That's what we need! Because no one's listening to us - certainly, no one is listening to me.
Ziggy Stardust, the Village People, and punk rock really shaped who I am as a person and as a gay man.
If you can write someone off as a bad person, then it's easier, but when someone is also great and noble and generous and kind and funny and contradictory, it gets harder.
Sly Stone made such a huge contribution to the good feeling in the universe, and I love him as a singer.
I always feel that my whole life is representing the LGBT community. It's kind of what I do all the time.
I love American positivity.
When I got sober, I really felt like there was something that was missing from my life, Buddhism is something that I practice.
I was always good at music.
I think that's the fascinating thing about the '70s is that it turns out it was quite a dark decade. But, like, who knew?
Sometimes, having a reputation can be the best thing because people expect you to be really difficult, perhaps a bit caustic, and hard work - and I'm none of those things.
Compliments are very un-British, but when someone pays you one, you should take it.
For someone like me, who has grown up with Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen, it's hard not to invest a lot of myself in what I do.
Bands like Culture Club and artists like me, you tend to concentrate on the live arena because that's where you can be your most authentic. That's where you have the most power.
For some strange reason, my gay life didn't get easier when I came out. Quite the opposite happened, really.
I'm not in love, but I'm open to persuasion.
I wanted people not to care about whether you were gay, straight, black, white, transgender, whatever it may be... That being said, there's more work to be done... I still want to change the world, absolutely.
The struggle isn't just about being straight or gay or transgender - it's a human struggle. That's always really been my kind of starting point: If you're out there and you're odd, come over to my house.
There's no better time than now to be who you are.
My coming of age was in the '70s. A lot of people look back on it as a grim decade, but I look back on it as a liberating time.
I look back now, and most of the drama in my life was self-inflicted. I don't need to make up so much drama now.
When I was 19 or 20 and doing my thing, I can't sit here and say I had this strong political agenda - I was literally just being myself.
I'm much more interested in working and getting on with my music.
My dad was very explosive, God rest his soul. He could fly off the handle like no one I've ever known, and I have definitely got that in my personality: that ability to sort of smash the house up and then say, 'Put the kettle on,' to have that kind of attitude of, 'Well, I'm OK now, so everybody else has got to be OK.'
At 16, I walked around knowing I'd get chased and attacked for dressing a certain way - I felt I had an undeniable right to be who I wanted to be. My father said to hit them back, but I was never much good at that. So I developed a big mouth instead of a quick right hook.
On the street, on the train - I pull my hat down, and nobody knows it's me. I always wanted the kind of fame that came with an off button.
My appetite for self-destruction and misery is greatly diminished. I'm not interested in being unhappy.
I've got so much to be happy about.
I've sold a lot of records. I've sold, like, 150 million records, and I don't think I've had that many good reviews. It's one of those things that when you're really successful, critics hate you just because you're successful.
I can be quite noisy and robust in the morning.
For artists of my caliber, we're not played on the radio, so we don't really get a chance to get involved in that debate at all. We don't get a chance, because this weird kind of ageism exists in pop music. If you're past a certain age, you're not relevant. That's the kind of cliched term.
I try to find happiness in almost anything... watching videos about new exercises, like ones you can do on a flight when you clench your buttocks.
I look at myself at 19 and think I would never do what I did then now! I was so brazen, so confident, so fearless in a way. And remember, the world was a very aggressive place then.
I always think that change is like a daisy chain.
When I put out 'Same Thing In Reverse,' I was told categorically that this will never get played in America.
As an outsider, you don't think of Australia as being old-fashioned - it's only when you've been here for a period of time when you realise there are issues.
You don't walk like other boys. You don't talk like other boys. But at six, you are not thinking about your sexuality.
When you're in the world I'm in, sometimes you have to remember that when you see your friends, you need to ask them what they've been doing, and you need to grow up and learn your life isn't necessarily more interesting than other people's.
To be here in America so soon after the Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage and at the birth of the Caitlyn phenomena feels so timely. It feels perfect for my universe to collide with Caitlyn's, but on a purely personal level, I just think she is utterly fabulous and brave.
