Siffre: "I was brought up to have low self-esteem. I grew up being told by society that as a homosexual I was a bad, wicked, evil person. However, at the same time, I’m someone who is very much aware of my own genius."

Siffre: "I’ve always taken love very seriously. Not just what it is, but how disastrous it would be to be without it."

Siffre: "I went in believing that the music business would be run by – who else? – musicians. But you don’t blame a rattlesnake for biting you. A rattlesnake is a rattlesnake, and you’re stupid to wander around in sandals and no socks in a rattlesnake-infested area."

Siffre: "I would say I’m not very good at selling myself."

Siffre: "Although it’s difficult for people to believe, being rich and famous never occurred to me in my plan. I realised by the time of my first album that I was not in the mainstream. So all I actually wanted was for my work to be useful."

Siffre: "There’s this rubbish about homosexuality being un-African. Bullsh*t!"

Siffre: "By my first album I knew I was writing good-quality work. And when things have not been as popular as I thought they should have been, I always felt that, eventually, they would be recognised as a good song. Because a good song never dies."

Siffre: "I got pissed off with the ‘f*ggots’ and ‘hoes’ [in Eminem’s lyrics]. Because it’s just lazy, cowardly writing."

Siffre: "My manager at the time said: ‘Every word on the album is true, but people don’t want to hear that.’ I thought to myself, I should leave these people – they don’t understand what I’m doing. But I knew I could trust them, so I stayed. And they did at least try and understand what I was doing, they did make an effort. Because I’m not easy … I’m not easy, even for myself!"

Siffre: "I was a little annoyed to find that some people expected me to continue with my ‘brilliant’ career."

Siffre: "I grew up believing that real men, whatever real men are, don’t boast. Nowadays, everybody boasts. People will actually come up to you and tell you that they’re compassionate!"

Siffre: "I’ve never taken kindly to being bullied."

Siffre: "The most important thing in your life is what happens at home. Many people don’t understand this. It is head and shoulders above everything else. And from the moment Peter and I met, I never took [that love] for granted."

Siffre: "What I cared about was attacking the oppressed rather than the culprits."

Siffre: "I sat down, played a C chord, threw my head back and sang the first two lines of Something Inside So Strong. I realized I was writing about my life as a gay man and I found myself crying."

The Guardian: He says he had already worked out his life plans at an early age. By 11 he knew he had to “find someone and make them love me for the rest of our lives”; by 13 he had resolved, thanks to one of his four brothers’ impressive record collection, to become a musician.