RUSSELL BRAND

I don't mind having a reputation as a serious and spiritual person. I think that would be a nice reputation to have.

I don't know if this is the kind of retrospective analysis that people are fond of applying to their work or actions, but it feels like I knew I was going to be famous and I knew that an element of that would be traumatic, so that if I could make myself something big and otherworldly, it would be a kind of defence.

In England, we have such good manners that if someone says something impolite, the police will get involved.

It's difficult to believe in yourself because the idea of self is an artificial construction. You are, in fact, part of the glorious oneness of the universe. Everything beautiful in the world is within you.

When I was growing up, I thought I'd be a lot happier if I was famous and successful and if I had money.

I also quite like to be recognized by children; I find it sweet.

People have always said, are you gay? I've had a lot of that. But it's just not in me. I really like women a lot; I'm repulsed by men sexually.

Honesty has always been an integral part of my operation, really.

I do have a regard for the musicality of language that came from BBC sitcoms like 'Fawlty Towers.'

I do transcendental meditation, which is, I suppose, derived from Vedic or Ayurvedic principles, which is sort of Hindu principles.

I also do a lot of Kundalini yoga.

No-one really feels self-confident deep down because it's an artificial idea. Really, people aren't that worried about what you're doing or what you're saying, so you can drift around the world relatively anonymously: you must not feel persecuted and examined. Liberate yourself from that idea that people are watching you.

I recognize that I have the ability to be selfish, but I also recognize that you can't be happy if you only care about yourself at the expense of other people.

Everyone has their own mantra.

My mum brought me up on her own. All we really had was each other.

Sometimes, as a comedian, a line will come to you, that is so beautiful, so perfect, that you think: I did not create this line. This line belongs to all of us. Surely this is a line of God.

As a person... I'm a little more doubtful, introspective and analytical.

It would have been convenient to be gay. Just because of the grooming, the narcissism, stuff like that. But I have this kind of roaring heterosexuality. Traditional, uncomplicated heterosexuality, an almost cliched Robin Askwith thing.

People don't throw your bags out of windows because of lies; they throw them out because of the truth.

I've always had this impulse to be destructive.

The bad-boy label is just an assumption.

Strength does not have to be belligerent and loud.

I'm into yoga, I meditate all the time, I'm vegetarian.

I enjoyed having a reputation as being wild, but these days I try not to worry about what people think in the privacy of their own brain or what they write in the bizarre publicity of their own newspapers, because all of those things are meaningless.

As a performer, I'm very, very confident in what I do.