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I had spent many years pursuing excellence, because that is what classical music is all about... Now it was dedicated to freedom, and that was far more important.

Had I not become entangled with music, I would have become an author much earlier.

I didn't grow up with classical music. My father was a folk music singer.

I don't have a classical-music mentality. I haven't been taught that way, and it doesn't fit my character, either.

Actually, I've had very little classical training, although I love listening to classical music very much.

I had 12 years of classical music as a child, playing piano competitions as a teenager, playing in blues bands and rock 'n' roll bands, country and jazz bands. I played in about any situation.

If I had not had music in my life, I would be the neurasthenic vision of the playwright.

There was a period when I'd just come out of college where I'd been playing classical guitar and I suddenly realised that it wasn't what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.

In a way, I'm lucky that I was never classically trained and never went to a music college. I'm just from a normal working class family and happened to get obsessed with music as a teenager.