Simon Cowell and I are great friends, and we wind each other up. Rod Stewart and I do the same thing.

People who mock rap and say, I don't like it, they should go and check out Kanye West in the studio rapping, or Marshall, Eminem, when he's in the studio. It's a phenomenon. Don't knock it until you've seen it. It may not be your cup of tea, but don't ridicule it.

I'm so over the tattoos and the T-shirts and rings through the noses. It's not pretty, it's not pleasant, it's not exciting. Please stop it now.

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.

I've never had a writer's block, but still I think: Is it going to happen this time? You never know what you're going to get; you just put your fingers on the keys and hope.

We have come so far. It's become a real bipartisan cause, which I'm very happy to see. And in the case of America, and it's -- certainly, without America, we'd be facing catastrophe.

I've been going to Russia since 1979. I've been going quite frequently, and I've always had a wonderful rapport with the Russian audiences and with the Russian people.

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.

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.

On a street of right and wrong in every inch of sadness, rocks and tanks go hand in hand with madness.

Rocket Man, burning out his fuse up here alone.

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.

The Less I Say The More My Work Gets Done.

Don't let the sun go down on me.

And I agreed with that, and I couldn't wait to change my name anyway, because I'm not too fond of the name of Reginald. It's a very kind of '50s English name.

I don't want a Jennifer Lopez wedding or anything like that. A commitment ceremony would be a nice thing to do.

I could never go onstage in denims.

I lived my teenage years in my 20s when I sort of left home and became Elton John success, then it became Elton John excess... Everything I couldn't do when I was younger I did 10 times over. I was having the time of my life. I was becoming the person that I wanted to be.

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

My mum always used to buy a record every Friday.