Elton John quotes:

I grew up at my grandmother's house, and she had a beautiful garden. I used to hate mowing the lawn and weeding, which is what you do when you're a kid. I loathe gardening, but I love gardens, and I have two beautiful gardens.

I love the idea of the teachings of Jesus Christ and the beautiful stories about it, which I loved in Sunday school and I collected all the little stickers and put them in my book. But the reality is that organised religion doesn't seem to work. It turns people into hateful lemmings and it's not really compassionate.

And I'm afraid, in this day and age, trust, which I count so, you know, I love loyalty. I love trust.

I love every minute of fatherhood, staying up all night, changing nappies, kids crying, I find it really funny and inspiring. It connects you to the world in a new way.

I loathe gardening, but I love gardens, and I have two beautiful gardens. I can not bear gardening, but I love gardens.

I'm not everybody's cup of tea. But sometimes criticism can be hurtful. Be respectful. I'm a good piano player, I can sing well, I write good songs. If you don't like it, fair enough. But give me a break.

But you know, I have a pretty good relationship with the press and the paparazzi. It's just when they step over the line that, you know, enough's enough.

I love places that have an incredible history. I love the Italian way of life. I love the food. I love the people. I love the attitudes of Italians.

I grew up at my grandmother's house and she had a beautiful garden. I used to hate mowing the lawn and weeding, which is what you do when you're a kid.

There is nothing wrong with going to bed with someone of your own sex. People should be very free with sex, they should draw the line at goats.

I'm lucky enough and wealthy enough to be able to buy photographs and buy art that inspires me from day to day. I don't want a Picasso on my wall; it's great art, but it's dead art to me. I'd rather have a photograph by someone I've never heard of that really inspires me.

Jesus wanted us to be loving and forgiving. I don't know what makes people so cruel.

Well, I'm a huge fan of Ryan Adams, who's from North Carolina. And he's beginning to break really quite big.

I'm so proud to be on a Kate Bush record; she's always marched to the beat of her own drum.

Because, I figured that, because I was a successful man, I was wealthy, I was, you know, seemingly intelligent - even that I am not intelligent enough to ask for help.

I rarely wear tennis shoes. I'm 5' 8', I hate being short.

And I trusted someone to look after me on the business side of life.

I mean, Sting is one of my great buddies and I love him to death.

When your persona begins to take over your music and becomes more important, you enter a dangerous place. Once you have people around you who don't question you, you're in a dangerous place.

Music has healing power. It has the ability to take people out of themselves for a few hours.

I am such a Luddite when it comes to making music. All I can do is write at the piano.

The thing about Vegas is, I don't have to fly anywhere, and that really helps. It means I stay in one place for three weeks at a time instead of flying backwards and forwards.

The great thing about small children is they're portable, so we take them everywhere, but when it comes to 2015, Zachary's going to school, and I want to be there to drop him off and pick him up. I don't want to just be the father who reads them a bedtime story.

I'm a great lover of children. I never thought that one day I'd actually be a father, but I'm very pleased that I changed my mind. Children are extremely important. They are the future of the world.

I've got a great collection of photography.

I've got to do something to make up for all those self-absorbed and selfish years when I just, you know, was taking drugs, sitting in my room, doing bad things, whatever.

Well, I've had my fair share in Britain of battling the tabloids.

I do work a lot. I mean, most of my income, I would say, comes from live performances. And then you've got publishing, you've got record royalties.

I've had an amazing professional life, personal life, but at 64 to have a son who gives us that much love and enjoyment is, wow!

I was more ashamed that I couldn't work the washing machine than the fact that I was taking drugs.

I went to a mixed school and I can't remember being bullied at school, ever. I was quite large, in those days. Usually, if you're going to be a bully, you'll pick on someone who is small. I didn't bully anybody, and I don't remember being bullied.

I never thought of myself as being handsome or good-looking or whatever.

I used to get my money at the end of the week, buy my mum something, or buy a record, and that was it.

I never thought of myself as being handsome or good-looking or whatever. I always felt like an outsider.

There's a lot of hate in the world.

I think people should be free to engage in any sexual practices they choose; they should draw the line at goats though.

If there is a better singer in England than Craig David, then I am Margaret Thatcher.

Rock and roll came in and changed my life and changed the whole music scene forever, and then I grew to love R&B and Motown and all black music, gospel music. But I never dismiss any form of music. I listen to everything.

There ain't been no angels in heaven around since God invented girls.

Talk to each other. Never go to bed when you're angry with each other. Lady Antonia Frasier who was married to Harold Pinter said they never went to bed on an argument.

On Keith Richards: He's like a monkey with arthritis.

It was also great to have the Backstreet Boys appear on stage with me because I have gotten to know them all a little bit just recently, and not only are they great performers, but they also very hard working professionals and really nice guys.

The Backstreet Boys can sing their asses off. I'm not so sure about those other boy bands. But Backstreet Boys have my ultimate respect.

Bands today have to learn their craft by putting the hard work in that we did when we were young performers.

The French are useless. They can't organize a piss-up in a brewery.

I've got that resilient thing inside me. But I wasn't a happy bunny.

Hold me closer tiny dancer, count the headlights on the highway. Lay me down in sheets of linen, you had a busy day today.

Sweet freedom whispered in my ear, you're a butterfly, and butterflies are free to fly, fly away, high-away, bye-bye.

I think that's the graveyard of musicians, playing cabaret. I think I'd rather be dead than work in cabaret. It's just so depressing.

And the danger is - and it's happening - is we're seeing an incredibly big rise amongst young gay people, young heterosexual people as far as catching HIV, which is, you know, in an educated country like this or in Britain, it's frightening.

It's the circle of life, and it moves us all, through despair and hope, through faith and love, 'till we find our place, on the path unwinding.

I still want to play music but I don't want to look like Donald Duck while I'm doing it.

I love drag queens and I love going to see them perform because those people have got so much character and bravery. Such balls! I love people with balls.

But actually, my drug addiction thing, I was so stubborn.

When I say I don't have to write pop songs anymore, there's no way I'm going to get on the radio at 60 years of age unless I'm doing a duet with Gaga or I was on 'All of the Lights,' which was a Kanye West record that managed to get on the radio.

I'm enjoying everything in my life, but I think the element of surprise in show business is what makes us really love it, because one day you're sitting by the phone waiting to do something or not doing anything, and the next day you've got the chance of a lifetime. Those little phone calls don't come up so often, but when they come up, it's fantastic.

I want to do a musical movie. Like Evita, but with good music.

So excuse me forgetting, but these things I do You see I've forgotten, if they're green or they're blue Anyway, the thing is, what I really mean Yours are the sweetest eyes, I've ever seen.

As a child, as a teenager, I was kind of not allowed to wear fashionable clothes.

And I talked to my doctor, and I must admit, you know, I'm sometimes quite renowned for my outbursts and I was just very frustrated, maybe a little frightened.

Dave and I as a couple seem to be the acceptable face of gayness, and that's great. I've got to use that power to try and do what I can - or we have - to try to make the situations in Russia and Poland better.

People with HIV are still stigmatized. The infection rates are going up. People are dying. The political response is appalling. The sadness of it, the waste.

And there's no guarantee that if you get HIV and you take these triple therapies, or whatever comes along next, that they're going to be successful for you.

After claws and feathers, he took skin and bone, shaped it like an hour glass and made the angels moan.

I love football, but I'm sick of the World Cup. I don't even care about England.

We were both very much the same. We were both very impulsive. We both loved life. We both loved shopping. We both had a love of clothes, obviously, because he was the designer that I kind of wore forever and ever.

How dare you refer to my beautiful children as 'synthetic'. And shame on you for wagging your judgemental little fingers at IVF - a miracle that has allowed legions of loving people, both straight and gay, to fulfill their dream of having children, your archaic thinking is out of step with the times, just like your fashions. I shall never wear Dolce and Gabbana ever again.

We can't keep thinking of gay people as being ostracised; we can't keep thinking of Muslim people as being ostracised because of the fundamentalism that occurs in Islam. Muslim people have to do something about speaking up about it. We can't judge a book by its cover.

There's a time for everyone, If they only learn, that the twisting kaleidoscope moves us all in turn.

I'm glad I've given up drugs and alcohol. It would be awful to be like Keith Richards. He's pathetic. It's like a monkey with arthritis, trying to go onstage and look young.

Religion promotes the hatred and spite against gays. From my point of view, I would ban religion completely. Organised religion doesn't seem to work. It turns people into really hateful lemmings and it's not really compassionate.

I mean, in some cases with libel laws, you know, they can write things about people who have no course of action, because they can't afford to take legal action against them.

You can beat her, but don't mistreat her. Oh, don't believe that woman please.

Love's like a junkie, addiction's a fact. Passion's a monkey, you can't keep off your back.

I am the most well-known homosexual in the world.

I don't think you can recreate anything from the past. You can not do it. If you're going to go out and imitate a Motown sound, you can't do it, it's impossible because of the studios and players involved and the atmosphere.

My mum always used to buy a record every Friday.

Blue jean baby, LA lady, seamstress for the band. Pretty eyed, pirate smile, you'll marry a music man. Ballerina, you must have seen her dancing in the sand.

I've been following him since Space Oddity. And I've followed him from all those albums that didn't sell, like The Man Who Sold The World and things like that. Above all, apart from all the glamorous rubbish, the music's there. Ziggy Stardust is a classic album.

Mars ain't the kind of place to raise your kids, in fact it's cold as hell.

This overload is edging me further out to sea, I need to put some distances between overkill and me.

I've always wanted to smash a guitar over someone's head. You just can't do that with a piano.

Ask anyone. If it hadn't been for Elvis, I don't know where popular music would be. He was the one that started it all off, and he was definitely the start of it for me.

I saw you dancing out the ocean Running fast along the sand A spirit born of earth and water Fire flying from your hands

This life's a long old roadWe shouldn't have to walk aloneBut if you find the right companionYou won't feel so worn out when you've grownAll life is preciousAnd every day's a prizeAnd sometimes you'll find an answer in the sky

An agent is a person who is sore because an actor gets 90% of what they make.

I have no one to leave the money to. I'm a single man. I like spending my money.

We live in an age, in an era where there is so much negativity, there is so much violence in the world, there is so much unrest and people are at war, that I wanted to promote the word love and red signifies love.

Live for each second without hesitation

It was Scotty Moore's guitar riff [in "I Want You, I Need You, I Love You"] when he was doing The Steve Allen Show that got me into rock music.

I do like my rock stars to be a little larger than life. I don't mind the earnest ones at all, but I do like a bit of individuality.

Shock waves to a tired brain, sends that hungry lady to my door again. She's my shelter from the storm when I feel the rain, entertaining white powder.

I do like Britney Spears. I think she's cute. I think she's fun. And I like her records. You know, I'm not a pop snob whatsoever. I think she makes great pop records.

You can cage the songbird, but you can't make her sing. And you can trap the free bird, but you'll have to clip her wings.

When people go to rehab and come out, they go through a difficult period, but I never had that.

The worst thing you can do to a child, and I've seen it happen so many times, is the silver spoon.

I tour as many countries as possible, and I've toured every state in America, plus every province in Canada.

It's very important to have two tiaras when you're on the road; you never know when you'll be invited to something really formal.

Top dog, top hat, move that muscle, move that fat.

If you write great songs with meaning and emotion, they will last for ever because songs are the key to everything. Songs will outlast the artist and they will go on for ever if they are good.

I heard Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis, and that was it. I didn't ever want to be anything else. I just started banging away and semi-studied classical music at the Royal Academy of Music but sort of half-heartedly.

The whole point of being in this business and being blessed and being successful is that you're able to do things for your friends or your family, which means that they can have something special in their lives, too.

If I was to say what I am, I'd be a Labour man. I like Tony Blair a lot, I think he's a good man. And in America I'd definitely be a Democrat; I'd never be a Republican.

I don't have to compete in the charts. I can just be myself as a musician, a songwriter and play with the musicians that I really love.

I hate to say this, but I always listen to the music and the instrumentation first, and then grab on to the lyrics later.

When Little Richard used to stand up and play it was just fabulous, and Liberace had the candlesticks and the rings and the gift of the gab. The piano's is the most ungainly rock' n' roll instrument of all time but those two people transcended it, as did Jerry Lee Lewis.

Fame attracts lunatics.

Once I'd heard 'Modern Times' by Bob Dylan, it really changed the way I wanted to make records.

I think performers are all show-offs anyway, especially musicians. Unless you show off, you're not going to get noticed.

There's no pressure for me to go out there and say, I've got to have a top 40 hit because it's not going to happen.

Well, I was making a record, and I had to choose a name, because they said, you know, you can't make a record under the name of Reg Dwight, because it's never going to - you know, it's not attractive enough.

I've always been dead set against festivals - really suspicious and wary.

Yeah. I have been with David Furnish for eight years, now.

I'm addicted to working. I mean, I have a list of 100 countries I want to play in. I'm basically killing myself by travelling so much, for no reason whatsoever.

I have a much better relationship with the press than I did, I think because I stood my ground.

Well, as I was saying... everyone's so nice to me, usually.

I'm very relaxed. I have a family, I have a partner of 20 years, I have a wonderful life; nothing could be better.

It's just so wonderful to have someone in the house like a child to turn your attention to. It's not about you anymore, it's about this lovely little human being.

She's got electric boots, a mohair suit, you know I read it in a magazine.

There is such a thing as good interference from your record label. I don't think I get enough interference from my record label.