My guitar survived Kosovo, then I went to visit a record company back in London and fell off my motorbike with it on my back, smashing it to bits. I was travelling at two miles per hour.
— James Blunt
I found in my writing that I could express emotions that, as an everyday person, I have no interest in expressing: these strange things that girls talk about called feelings.
I'm always ready for the enemy to come over the hill. I'm packed and set to go. That comes from my time in the army. I used to travel in a tank, but now it's a tour bus going to safer places.
I'm self-deprecating because I'm British, and that's what we're supposed to be. I'm sure if I was American, I'd tell you how great I was.
I probably deserve a bit of a kicking. And having been to boarding school, I've learnt to enjoy a good beating.
I think it's always worth remembering that people sending off mean tweets are probably pretty lonely people.
I generally read everything about me. Based on my army experience, I think it's the right thing to do. Saddam Hussein didn't read his reviews and thought he was winning the war.
I love hamburgers, but if you give me a hamburger for every meal, I'm gonna tire of it.
We are in the entertainment business. This should be fun. We are musicians; we don't save lives. We shouldn't... we shouldn't take ourselves too seriously or be revered that much.
My dad was in the Army. The Army's not great pay, but, you know, we moved from Army patch to Army patch wherever that was. The Army also contributed to sending me off to boarding school.
I always wanted to be a Muppet. So when 'Sesame Street' approached me to guest star, I thought: 'I'm going to be on this!' It's pretty incredible stuff.
Every time I do an interview, it's like serious therapy. But real therapy isn't something that I'd ever have. I feel fortunate that mentally everything is functioning well.
I sing like a girl.
I am not into fashion. I just like being able to buy my mates dinner.
I try to read everything that I can about myself because Saddam Hussein didn't read his reviews and he thought he was winning!
My mum was very good at making me take up musical instruments, so although there was no popular music she made me learn the recorder when I was three, the violin when I was five and the piano when I was seven. I took up the guitar myself when I was 14.
I think having toured the world and seeing many places, I've just been blown away by how we've really scarred our home. I'm as guilty as the next person if not more so. I travel a lot. The damage we do to our planet is huge.
Space is tight inside a tank: very close confines, and you're permanently banging. Like in Brad Pitt's new movie 'Fury' - the clanking of metal is all you hear.
To call me gay is a compliment. Also, if I'd been macho, I'd just have had an audience full of men.
Carrie Fisher was the most remarkable person I've ever known. I made my first three albums in her house. 'Goodbye My Lover' was recorded in her bathroom. My life will not be nearly as much fun now she's gone.
Touring is the best invention of all time, so if I have to suffer a little bit of payback for having all this fun, then so be it.
I am a troll. And do you know what? I really don't like social media apart from that aspect of it. Posting pictures of me doing this or that is really boring, but I enjoy engaging with people. I tell them it's just a laugh and to stay in touch if you're getting any grief. They're just opinions.
I do have a ski lift named after me in Sweden... It's an honour. I got to smash a bottle against the first pillar and say, 'I name this chairlift James Blunt. God bless her and all who rides me.'
I'm a short, fairly plain person who's bluffing his case and getting away with it.
I haven't had the difficulties in my life that other people have had. I didn't have an unhappy childhood.
I stopped doing interviews for a long time because the words were mine, but they were in the wrong order. Context is a very important thing - a lot of the things I say aren't serious, and so to remove the laughter does me no favours.
Ladies love a soppy lyric. There's a real winner in 'Carry You Home.'
I try to tell one lie in every interview. It keeps people I know amused when they read the article.
I relax by catching up with my friends and family. When I am at home in Ibiza, I find the contrast of living on a divided island relaxing - with beauty and tranquillity in the north and a sense of fun, shallowness and celebration in the south.
I am very happy to say I look just like my dad. But mothers always think their children are prettier than they really are, and mine has always told me I look like Tom Cruise.
I'm quite British in the sense of not expressing my emotions much. I save it for my songs. If you ask about a death in the family, or a lover, I will not be emotional. I'd probably answer with a smile. Because that's what we British blokes do.
I like 'Goodbye My Lover' because it's a really personal song and I recorded it in my landlady's bathroom in Los Angeles. She had a piano in there and for me listening back to it, it actually sounds like the voice I hear in my head. It's so close to what I can imagine.
My grandparents live in Cley, and my dad now has the windmill which is a guest house. So I've spent much time up there, but a lot of it was at school as well, and my dad was sent abroad so often as well with the army.
War is devastating, and it leaves its scars for generations.
I'm a fairly unaffected human being. I'm easy to talk to, I hope. I'm not too bothered about the clothes I'm wearing. I've been misquoted in interviews as to appear earnest. Which I am not.
I don't think about Norfolk as I write songs, sadly no! But things like 'High' is a song about watching the dawn come up over the sea, and I've had many of those situations.
I've always been independent. My father was in the army, so we moved every two years. I had to go round and bang on the neighbour's door each time to find out if they had kids I could play with.
I've got the best job in the world.
I don't think I was ever designed to be a ubiquitous worldwide star. I'm a singer-songwriter writing quite personal songs. You're not supposed to chuck me on a stage with bells and whistles. There was a struggle ahead after that happened, and perhaps I was trying to write songs to compete in that arena.
I was an eBay addict before my first album hit big. I wanted to go on this tour of the world, so I started selling everything on eBay.
The weird thing about the subway is no one looks at each other. So I play the O2 in London. It's a 20,000 capacity venue, and then I'll take the subway to my gig, and everyone's going to my gig, and no one looks at you. If anyone does, they say, 'Hey, you look exactly like James Blunt, only smaller.'
I think I was lucky to be a little older when I became famous. But still, the shock of the world starting to treat you in a weird way... I had come from the army, where we had to deal with life or death, and suddenly, people were asking whether you were cool or not. I have never cared about whether I'm cool.
I never really set out to do anything in the charts with music. It came as a total surprise that I did, and it's fun.
'Top Gear' changed people's perceptions of me. I've had much more positive responses from my TV appearances than written articles. And I have the weirdest voice.
Sometimes, reading my own media, the negativity can upset me, but I just deal with things on a positive basis. I mean, I have up to 20,000 people singing my words back to me on a nightly basis - they share my hopes and fears, and they relate to my own life experiences. Life can be pretty isolating, but that connection is always amazing.
I don't agree with superstitious routines, but there are a couple of things I'll always do before performing. I'll get together with the band and chill out, and then, just before I go on stage, I'll always check my flies.
I don't think I picked up the guitar in the first place as a way of getting women. There are probably better ways of doing it.
The showbiz world has to be manipulated to make it more interesting because most people's lives are boring.
School was pretty good about letting me take up music and that's where I had my first musical ideas and first said, 'Yeah, I'm going to be a musician.' I just had to do a quick stop gap in the army first.
If you have good songs and a real desire to make music, the next thing to do, instead of approach record companies, is to get yourself a really good manager because then it allows you to focus on your profession of being a musician. Then they can focus on the darker art of the record label and the music industry.
