You can't allow other people to put a price on what you do, otherwise you don't consider what you do to have any value at all, and that's nonsense.
— Robert Smith
My earliest memories are sitting on the beach at Blackpool, and I know that if I went back, it would be horrible. I know what Blackpool's like - it's nothing like I imagined it was as a child.
Every animal would rather die themselves than lose their offspring. But it's just genes, isn't it? All of our existence is spent worrying about the next generation, but we don't actually seem to get anywhere.
I've got a Facebook page, but I've never put anything on it. I've got a presence on all the social networks, in fact, but I've never once sent a message. I'm there because, otherwise, someone's going to pretend to be me.
I started out in the 'Cure' reflecting things that I thought were important, and it's reached a point where it takes over and becomes the thing that is important.
I married somebody who likes the way I look. If I changed my hair every year, and I reinvented myself in time-honoured pop fashion, I think understandably the person I'm married to would grow slightly sick of me.
It has always seemed slightly uncomfortable, the idea of politicised musicians. Very few of them are clever enough to do it; if they're good at the political side, the music side suffers, and vice versa.
I had no desire to be famous; I just wanted to make the greatest music ever made. I didn't want anyone to know who I was.
I honestly don't class myself as a songwriter. I've got 'musician' written on my passport. That's even funnier.
Sometimes I'll get to the end of a song, open my eyes and there's all these faces peering at me. It's quite horrifying.
I don't think of death in a romantic way anymore.
I do a job I really, really love and I kind of have fun with. People think you can't be grown up unless you're moaning about your job.
I hardly ever listen to any of our old stuff now. Once the songs have been recorded and put on to vinyl they become someone else's entertainment, not mine.
You know, the Internets made us more aware of what people think about us.
When we started I wasn't the singer. I was the drunk rhythm guitarist who wrote all these weird songs.
I think the rock'n'roll myth of living on the edge is a pile of crap.
I get a much more extreme reaction when I have my hair really short. I look thuggish when I shave my head and wear big boots. I walk into a newsagent and people think I'm going to jump the counter. It's a much more extreme reaction.
I'd like to record somewhere really different. Rent a really big house and get a mobile in and set up in the dining room. Maybe New England; it'd be nice in September or October.
It's only people that aren't goths that think the Cure are a goth band.
I don't find the technology threatening. A lot of people my age, my generation, find it difficult to immerse themselves. But I would never preclude the idea of using any technology if I thought it suited the end result.
Reading is something I've really missed, not being able to enter people's worlds.
I look thuggish when I shave my head and wear big boots. I walk into a newsagent and people think I'm going to jump the counter.
My whole life I've played music for my own personal enjoyment and the idea of it becoming a machine or a business is just horrible.
I never answer if someone knocks on my door and only the band and my manager have my phone number. In any case my phone doesn't ring so I never notice it. I occasionally just walk past and pick it up to see if anyone's there.
Nobody notices me. Nobody thinks I'm me. But then I look less like me than most of the people coming to our concerts.
You can't drink on an eight hour flight, pass out, and then go onstage... well you can, but then you're Spandau Ballet.
I've always spent more time with a smile on my face than not, but the thing is, I don't write about it.
Refusing to grow up is like refusing to accept your limitations. That's why I don't think we'll ever grow up.
You don't really know a song until you play it live.
But everyone I know reaches a point where they throw out their arms and go beserk for a while; otherwise you never know what your limits are. I was just trying to find mine.
They may not like us, but they can't get away from knowing who we are.
I wouldn't want to think people doted on us, hung on every word, or wanted to look like us.
I have never liked Morrissey, and I still don't. I think it's hilarious, actually, what things I've heard about him, what he's really like, and his public persona is so different. He's such an actor.
I wore makeup when I was at school, and I wore makeup when glam started. I started wearing it again when punk started. I've always been drawn to wearing it. It's partly ritualistic, partly theatrical and partly just because I think I look better with it on.
I'm in the strange position of the world drifting away from me, but you know what? I'm actually quite content with that. It doesn't bother me in the slightest. I don't feel like, 'Oh God, I'm being left behind.'
I don't dislike my peers because they're still around and remind me of what I'm doing. I never liked them anyway. I never liked U2, the things they've done over the years.
I really enjoy what I do, and who I'm with and where I am. Having said that, I'm not really a person of habit, because what I do in my job is travel around the world and play concerts to people, and occasionally do very weird things.
I've never regretted not having children. My mindset in that regard has been constant. I objected to being born, and I refuse to impose life on someone else.
I've got a presence on all the social networks, in fact, but I've never once sent a message. I'm there because otherwise, someone's going to pretend to be me.
Each time I play a song it seems more real.
There's no hope of me becoming completely relaxed on stage. If I did, I'd sit down and doze off.
I'm not going to worry about the Cure slipping down into the second division; it doesn't bother me because I never expected to be in the first division anyway.
If any of our songs ever did make it on the top ten, I'd disband the group immediately.
I became an adult in an extreme way. I was recently sorting some old photographs and I found another.
I'd rather spend my time looking at the sky than listening to Whitney Houston.
Like I can't cry for myself so I will let this song take all of the things inside I can't let anyone else see and offer it up, as if the sound were some kind of god, and my pain is some kind of sacrifice.
No, come to think of it, I don't think the Cure will end, but I can make up an ending if you want me to.
I could write songs as bad as Wham's if I really felt the urge to, but what's the point?
