Chris Martin

I don’t speak particularly well. That’s one of the consequences of being extremely ugly.

What makes us a bit nervous is, in this instant age, to release something that might take more than one listen. Where everything is instantly judged on YouTube or something! It’s a bit like releasing a horse and cart on a racetrack.

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

When you’re on your fifth album, you are going to be judged against all your previous work and expectations.

A band’s only unique thing is its chemistry, especially if none of you are prodigious players or particularly handsome. The one thing you have is your uniqueness, so we hold on to that.

I think we’re a band with a lot of history now so it’s nice to come up with something that doesn’t have any history at all.

I think it’s really finding that belief in yourself, where you just have it no matter what’s going on, no matter what anyone else says. I think that’s the challenge, is to really have that belief in yourself.

I’m like one of those firecrackers that goes off in your pocket occasionally. I’m not really struggling with it as much as the people around me. But at least I’m not doing too much damage to anybody or to myself. It’s just the condition I’m aware of.

Okra is the closest thing to nylon I’ve ever eaten. It’s like they bred cotton with a green bean. Okra, tastes like snot. The more you cook it, the more it turns into string.

It’s a sport to me. I never want to get too complacent with my writing or my flow.

Healthcare is like a pair of gym shorts. Even if it covers nearly all it is supposed to, you’re still left with some problematic gaps and terrible things can happen.

Friends don’t lie.

I look at an audience kind of like meeting my in-laws for the first time. You want to be yourself, but you still want to be somebody that they like. When I go onstage each night, I try my best to outguess my audience, and I like to feel in most cases like I’m a big guy with long rubber arms that I can reach around my audience and swing and sway with them – move them with me. And many nights, I can’t. Many nights I can. But you do like a good manager with a baseball team. You keep pulling pitchers, you keep trying.

We rely more on enthusiasm than actual skill. Whatever you do, do it enthusiastically and people will like it more.

It hits you in small ways and large, doesn’t it? For instance, had you considered the fact that portraits of Trump are going to be hanging in our airports? Uh… or that the man who disparaged a Gold Star family will now be expected to comfort the families of fallen soldiers? And maybe you’ve tried to make yourself feel better, fantasizing that he might Google how much does the president get paid?, get depressed, and then resign. But that is when you remember Mike fucking Pence, who might be even worse, because he looks like he’s from the 1950s, but he thinks like he’s from the 1650s. Oh, what’s that, you say? Her pregnancy was terminated before birth? Well, clearly she’s a witch. Hold a funeral for the fetus and throw the mother in a lake.

If being an egomaniac means I believe in what I do and in my art or music, then in that respect you can call me that… I believe in what I do, and I’ll say it.

[on drumming] There’s something rather nice about spending the evening hitting things.

I’ve got this brilliant thing where I go, “I’m Robbie Williams”, and people are interested in what I want to say – which is amazing because I’m just an idiot from Stoke-on-Trent.

Ryan and I didn’t grow up like this at all, with this much attention. We’ll just try to keep their feet on the ground and raise them with the values we were raised with.

God gave us a penis and a brain, but not enough blood to use both at once.

They’re talking about partial nuclear disarmament, which is also like talking about partial circumcision- you either go all the way or forget it.