I became conflicted in my late teens.

At a certain age it just became apparent to me that this was probably the work that I would have to do.

One of the great privileges of having grown up in a middle-class literary English household, but having gone to school in the front lines in Southeast London, was that I became half-street-urchin and half-good-boy at home. I knew that dichotomy was possible.

I'm sorry, Hen. I still have feelings for you. It's just that my band needs a real bass player now. We're not a joke band anymore. Okay, sweetie?'
That was how Petra Dostoyevsky fired me.

There's nothing worse than finding yourself in a situation, a very demanding piece of work, and knowing that you're not a true ally to the person who's in charge of all that.

I was a savage for so many years of my life. There was some seed of determination in me that I was not conscious of. I was mostly consciously getting into trouble and drunk.