Robbie Williams

I’ve deliberately tried to calm myself down because eventually I want to be a good role model to my kids.

I’ve never, ever, raised a fist to anybody in my life.

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.

I don’t believe that to be fulfilled you have to have kids. What’s the point? I can’t guarantee my child won’t suffer pain because that kid’s going to be in pain at some point in their life. I don’t want to see that. It’s too much.

I come from the tradition of a big Irish family that loves to sing. I love to perform.

I can do anything I want to do really, I might as well.

I watch my contemporaries, and they love to live in the studio and I don’t. I have a life. I treat it as a 9-to-5. I try to create something new every day, and then I get on with my life.

I don’t think these women are stupid. I think they’re selling a personality that’s very marketable: Wouldn’t it be fun if we were all gorgeous and didn’t have a care? But creating a cultural icon out of someone who goes, “I’m stupid, isn’t it cute?” makes me want to throw daggers at them! I want to say to them, “My grandma did not fight for what she fought for, and my mother did not fight for what she fought for, so you can start telling women it’s fun to be stupid.” Saying that to young women, little girls, my daughter? It’s not OK.

The mall is my life.

News is now one of the three things that we get from social media, the other two being our entire sense of self-worth and pictures of shaved alpacas.

I was advised by an American agent when I was about 19 to change my surname.

People find out I’m an actress and I see that ‘whore’ look flicker across their eyes.

My love for the band is still there. It hasn’t changed, maybe that’s why it’s so painful these days.

I remember when we were talking to one of the executives at the BBC. And he said, ‘Now hold on, this man (David Brent) is so incompetent why wouldn’t he be fired?’ and I said ‘Go and take a look around this building. Just go and knock on a few doors.’

[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?”

I feel like I needed a balance. I don’t want to forget about my personal life and spending time with myself.

I do like to start on time; I like to set the bar high for people.

I just needed a job. Before being hired as an usher at the CBS Theater, I didn’t even know there was a show business.

[on Anthony Weiner] I remember him now… the man whose name is so perfect for the scandal he was caught up in that it rekindled my faith in God.

Keep in mind that most men like to pursue and win you. Don’t rob him of the enjoyment of doing that. When it comes to dressing to go out, it’s been my experience that guys prefer to think that the object of their affection is someone exclusive who isn’t available to everyone in the room. You’re clever enough to strike the right balance between hot and classy, aren’t you? Turn up the heat, but don’t invite the whole fire department.

Know what? Bitches get shit done.