Mick Rock quotes:

It's a miracle that David Bowie, Lou Reed and Iggy Pop are actually still alive today, given how hard they lived.

I do not use the word 'genius' lightly, but if David Bowie is not a genius, then there is no such thing.

Newspapers and magazines didn't want pictures of musicians behaving badly back then. Now, because of the Internet, that's all the media wants.

The true art of being young is knowing how to defy gravity and upset as many people as possible while doing it. How to penetrate the great secrets of the universe and damn the torpedoes. How to stir the demons of our destiny...

Every morning I stand on my head and do a yoga workout.

I did not want to be somebody who lived off his reputation. I wanted to continue to be part of the modern music scene.

I'd photographed musicians before but this was different. Syd was very charismatic, and he had the aura of a poete maudit, which made him the perfect subject for me - I realised that rock n' rollers were the modern equivalent of all the poets I was so enamoured with.

Somebody had given me a copy of 'Hunky Dory,' which had yet to be a hit, although it was starting to percolate. I'd seen a couple of pictures of David, with his interesting hairdo and outfits, and I decided to seek him out, which wasn't difficult back then, as he was eager to do any kind of publicity.

I don't show every picture that I have, I think discretion is also important.

People think: 'If this photographer's looking like a big jerk-off, maybe it's okay if I do.' I like to catch my subjects off balance a bit.

It's funny because unlike back in the seventies when I made hardly any money, today I could just live off the past if I wanted to. I have no interest in that.

My allegiance was always to the act. I wanted them to be happy. I wasn't owned by a magazine or a record label. And I was a very naughty boy to boot!