Chris Martin

Maybe it’s because I’m English, but in terms of how people perceive us I only pick up on the negative side of it.

I have my moments – usually twice every album – when I basically lose it.

I’m just a public-schoolboy. I’ve got a degree. I’m from a middle-class family in Devon. I’ve got no story.

More idiots should just shut their mouths.

I’m competitive with anyone who writes a good song – I don’t care if it’s a band or solo artist or whoever.

Sometimes we have criticism that is very constructive.

I’m always eager to return to the hospitality of the Southern states….Towns and cities that hold fond memories for me personally, places that gave birth to so much of the music I love.

The day before the film (Harry Potter) was released, I was just sitting in Leicester Square, happily being ignored by everyone. Then suddenly strangers are screaming your name. Amazing.

The joy we get as actors is out of transforming ourselves into something that’s not necessarily anything true to ourselves. And it’s a power – not being yourself, and being in the role; it’s just like another prop.

[On her most dreadful crush] I used to drive, pretty pathetically, I’d just drive by their house all the time and they didn’t know who I was. I’d just drive by the house all the time. I once knocked on the window and I thought, “What am I doing? What am I going to say if they come to the door and don’t know who I am?”

Ignorance is bliss? That’s bull, far as I’m concerned. Because I was making a half a cent a side – one penny for a record. It’s like building buses, for example. If you built this bus for me and I didn’t know anything about it, you could charge me whatever I’d pay for it. Now, which one of us is crazy? Me. And that’s the way they did me on the records. But I don’t fault them for it, because if you don’t know, you don’t know. It took me to learn.

Any time that people think enough of you to put up something that’s everlasting is only going to make you feel good.

You would find in a lot of Zep stuff that the riff was the juggernaut that careered through and I worked the lyrics around this.

I did audition for “Home and Away”, but they never called me back. I feel I escaped in a way.

A lot of times we talk about the politics of it, the unfairness of it, which is all true, but I think it’s clearer to people when you go, ‘Hey, that hurts my feelings.’

I’ve never felt uncomfortable with my level of fame. I don’t get hassled. Maybe sometimes in a minor way, but New Yorkers are much too cool for that. The thing is, you choose to be an actress, but not to be a celebrity.

Monterey, I remember, but I seem to remember the Fillmore West, that we played the week before Monterey. That was much more memorable for me. The first time in San Francisco. They were good gigs.

Before our albums are released I feel like we still own it, that we have control over our music. But once it’s out there in the world it’s no longer ours.

I think an extreme thing; I adjust it, I adjust it, I adjust it. That’s the way I get to it, but I have to push to, you know, the furthest concept possible.

I guess I was a floater, but not really. I don’t know. I didn’t get high school.

The second I met Zac Efron I thought he was a really cool guy. It’s hard not to have chemistry with someone who is quite attractive.