ROBERT SMITH

I despise people who revel in the ignorance of not being able to play their instrument.

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.

It's only people that aren't goths that think the Cure are a goth band.

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.

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.

I'm not a morose person; it's just that my best songs reflect on the sadder aspects of life.

I still frequent my parents' house. I go there to escape, back to the bedroom that I grew up in. Just to sit there and feel small.

Irony is the recourse of the weak-minded wimp, I think. I hate bands that deliver their songs with knowing smiles on their faces, so that if those songs fall flat they can say 'Ah well, we never really meant it anyway.' It's so dishonest.

When you're on stage, the real world just drops away for that time. It's pretty intense.

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.

You can't drink on an eight hour flight, pass out, and then go onstage... well you can, but then you're Spandau Ballet.

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.

If you acquiesce to one interview, there's always another waiting in the wings. Also if you're interviewed repeatedly, you just start repeating yourself. I don't like to do that.

Everything I do has the tinge of the finite, of my own demise. At some point you either accept death or you just keep pushing it back as you get older and older. I've accepted 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.

You put on eyeliner, and people start screaming at you. How strange, and how marvellous.

The very first concert I ever went to on my own was actually Rory Gallagher. In a one-month period in 1973 or '74, I saw him, Thin Lizzy and the Rolling Stones. I wasn't really a big Rory Gallagher fan, but I thought his guitar playing was fabulous. But Thin Lizzy, they were fabulous.

If any of our songs ever did make it on the top ten, I'd disband the group immediately.

Apart from the fact that I've got a strange job, I do lead a fairly normal life. I do my own shopping. I don't feel constrained by who I am because of what I do; I often feel disappointed by my lack of ability. I get frustrated at myself, but I think everyone does.

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 don't think of death in a romantic way anymore.

I became an adult in an extreme way. I was recently sorting some old photographs and I found another.

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.

There's no hope of me becoming completely relaxed on stage. If I did, I'd sit down and doze off.

I think that if you become a parent, you stop being a child, and your position in relation to your parents changes.