Top 100 Quotes & Sayings by Leo Sayer

I had to learn very quickly how to perform, how to act, how to look, to always say what I wanted to say in my songs.

Wisdom is learned through experience, and sometimes experience is hard and bitter.

My hair is massive and fills the mirror.

Fame is always a bit crazy. You spend so long banging on the door trying to get in that when it suddenly opens, it's a very strange feeling.

In the past, it wasn't any big deal for people with talent to hang out together. Now we have the celebrity age, which has made a lot of things harder to do.

I grew up on the south coast in Shoreham-by-Sea in a three-bedroom semi-detached home with a large garden shared by two properties.

I have had a partial kneecap replacement, an irritable bowel and three stents in my heart.

There were people who went for serious mind enhancement, like Jimi Hendrix or John Lennon, although I didn't really need to do that. I was blessed with an incredibly fertile imagination.

I've always been a tilter of lances against authority.

Sometimes I feel like Leonard Cohen when he went off to become a Buddhist.

In the early Nineties, after my first round of financial problems, I started a studio in Kensal Road in London right at the time when no record company wanted to hear anything from Leo Sayer.

You can't get away from the right-wing politics but that's the same all over the world.

I have always preferred paper and ink to a computer screen and I still write most of my lyrics by hand.

It happens in this business - The Rolling Stones were ripped off, so were the Beatles. George Harrison hardly had anything left in the end.

I'm not this cuddly, jumper-wearing, good-guy. I'm not David Cassidy. I'm more Johnny Rotten. I'm more Donny Tourette.

I think Bjork is sexy.

I particularly love the silk in Jakarta, the shoes in Tokyo and the amazing cloth from Thailand and Malaysia.

I tend not to eat lunch because a midday meal makes me want to sleep in the afternoon.

A bit of arrogance is nice every now and then.

I've typical singer's jowls, a bit fat and soggy. If I was really vain, I would have a nip and tuck, but the knife isn't an exciting prospect.

I have so many happy memories of Belfast and the shows I played there.

I think I topped 'When I Need You' with 'More Than I Can Say.'

We used to spend a lot of time as kids in Northern Ireland, on the border and in southern Ireland as well.

After my second No. 1, my record company, Warner Brothers, gave me a beautiful present - quite unique at the time - one of the very first Sony stereos which had speaker and radio included so I could record the radio and build up cassette tapes of music, gospel singing, adverts, evangelists.

I remember showing Prince around Warners' recording studios. He was the nicest kid.

Marriage can feel like putting a burden on each other and sometimes kids go with that, too.

My mum came from an incredibly big family.

Dancing as a thing to do is marvellous, but you've got to be bloody good at it. I was never good enough.

Do you know what, I don't even like dancing.

When you've sung the same song a million or a hundred thousand times, there are always moments when you drift off and go into automatic.

I'm not a golfing man.

I'm quite intellectual. I read a lot and I'm very politically aware.

My dad died with a full head of hair, so I have that legacy.

There are a million misconceptions about me but the greatest is probably that people think I'm the king of disco. I love disco but it is only one part of me.

I'm impressed with Ed Sheeran. I think he has a terrific point of view and a great mentality but I sense there is someone in the background saying to him, 'We need more love songs, Ed.'

I don't believe in muckin' about and hiding ambition.

A good microphone is an essential thing for a singer.

I must have 300 songs unreleased or unrecorded, lying around. I'm a production machine, it never stops.

I would say that artists have to be good lovers.

As a former Mod my love affair with fashion has never waned and whenever I go on tour I am always desperate to hit the shops as soon as possible.

I stand a lot better chance to go further than Elton.

So many people moan about touring and say it's a chore. I don't know, they must be living on a different planet.

I was a big-headed little guy.

Being very dyslexic I couldn't even tie my own shoe laces until the age of 21 and I struggled at school.

I spent some time with Bob Marley and I have to say that was like walking with a god on earth.

I'm sure I could have been a rich man, but I never was.

The Seventies was a golden era. Back then we had some incredible talent with bands like the Undertones, the Rolling Stones and artists like Bob Dylan and Paul McCartney.

There's nothing better than curling up with a good book and sitting in front of the fire on winter evenings.

I get frustrated but never depressed.

What keeps a good face is no stress, and I refuse to worry.

When I was dressed as a clown in all that make-up I used to shed pounds every night and got agonising kidney stones because I was sweating so much.

I'd much rather send my friends letters rather than emails.

You don't necessarily have to write a song to make it your own. After all, Elvis never wrote a song in his life.

You won't find me at parties or the openings of movies and I don't hang around with David Beckham and Kanye West. So the paparazzi leave me alone, which means that I can do my shows, write music and then live a normal life.

People with learning difficulties are often creative in different ways.

I damaged my legs and ankles many years ago when doing concerts and falling off stage.

I like my face. It's cheeky - dare I say, Chaplinesque.

I've found an extraordinary thing happens where I flash an entire finished song. I could be walking along, say over that bridge, and I see and hear the whole thing, words and music.

It's nice to feel wanted somewhere.

I occasionally suffer from eczema but only very mildly.