overheard

Hair is one of the main things you have to watch out for in this business ... the hairs stay on the finger and then you put them in your mouth. So then you put them on a microphone and when you come back in week the hair's still there.

Robin Hitchcock, singer/ songwriter, Daily Telegraph

I was dyslexic and failed all my exams.

Murray Lachlan Young, poet, who was recently signed a million-pound deal with EMI, Times

Performing poetry is like being a door-to-door salesman. You've got to get your foot in straight away, then you can close the door with them inside and start the demonic stuff.

ibid

We lived in this dry-below-the-waist kind of scene ... Where I come from, a cockroach is a roach and a cockerel is a rooster because they can't bring themselves to say "cock".

Singer Tori Amos recalls her childhood, Elle

I love being sexy, of course I do.

Sharleen Spiteri, shy and retiring frontwoman of band Texas, GQ

Action/exploitation shoot-'em-ups with a lot of yucks.

Mel Gibson fondly remembers the Lethal Weapon trilogy, Vanity Fair

Little girls practise on their dads. What do we do if they give us that look?

Jeremy Irons offers a defence for both Nabokov and the new film of Lolita, in which he plays Humbert Humbert, Guardian

I took a tiny bit of mescaline and I had a vision - our brothers and sisters are starving over in Africa and I want to give them some money. But I wasn't going to give the whole lot away. The stuff in the newspapers made me think that I did want to give all my money away.

Peter Green of Fleetwood Mac, Q

I've been reading about Muhammad Ali recently. He didn't need to have that last fight ... sometimes it's best to leave it. It's knowing when to quit.

Paul Weller, Modfather, Q

For him to write songs as crap as he does, he must be well and truly fucked-up. It's really, really hard to write that amount of crap!

Ian McCulloch, musician, on Paul Weller, Melody Maker

"Fucking alchohol, man,

it's the worst drug in the world. Worse than smack, crack, the lot. I hate it, but what can you do?"

Substance enthusiast Shaun Ryder, (NME 19/7/97)

"I had to stop in the end. I think the waiters at the Ritz thought I was a hooker."

Mavis Cheek recounts her dating exploits at the Ritz while discussing her latest book.

"Actors are the most insecure loser people in the world"

Milla Jovovich, a model; Arena Magazine, July issue.

"There's times in Beetlejuice where I'm really great. There's times in Batman when I'm great. There's times in Much Ado when I'm great. There's times in Pacific Heights when I'm pretty great...I'd love to be married to me."

(great) actor Michael Keaton proclaims his talent to Movieline Magazine.

"The music business is a really paranoid environment...everyone's too busy looking up their own arse to have a good time. I love it, though"

Louise Wener of Sleeper; Elle Magazine, August issue.

"I'm always short of underwear."

Ginger Spice Geri, Rolling Stone Magazine July10 - 24

"I like the elements of danger which surround rock'n'roll. If someone throws a bottle at you, you've got to duck. Sometimes it is a pain and a misery, but turning a crowd like that around is more exciting than making a bunch of half-arsed graduates laugh."

"We come in Peace but we always come prepared for war...If we've got to break your arm we break your arm." Wu-Tung Clan

Rolling Stone Magazine July 10 - 24

"I've noticed that critics get very annoyed if they have settled your hash, and then you have the temerity to publish yet another book."

John Ashbery (Books) The Guardian July 24

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