Sting: "I write the music, produce it and the band plays within the parameters that I set."

Sting: "I realize that nothing's as it seems."

Sting: "Success always necessitates a degree of ruthlessness. Given the choice of friendship or success, I'd probably choose success."

Sting: "I've never lost perspective on who I am. Well, maybe briefly, but generally I'm pretty balanced."

Sting: "I learned to change my accent; in England, your accent identifies you very strongly with a class, and I did not want to be held back."

Sting: "In my quest to become unique, I've become a statistic."

Sting: "I come from a family of losers, and I've rejected my family as something I don't want to be like."

Sting: "Like Yoga, the spiritual life is actually very difficult."

Sting: "If you make your living writing, and you can't write anything, it's over. It's very frightening."

Sting: "I'm not much of a family man. I'm just not that into it. I love kids, I adore them, but I don't want to live my life for them."

Sting: "It has very little to do with my work, but if your image is not sexy enough, people won't listen. It's part of the game."

Sting: "I have been through various fitness regimes. I used to run about five miles a day and I did aerobics for a while."

Sting: "I don't like singing before noon."

Sting: "I always stayed fit because I'm a performer, and all of those things help me to perform."

Sting: "The more irrational of us are worried about the millennium ending - as if a date would really matter."

Sting: "I exist in a state of almost perpetual hysteria."

Sting: "You have to be yourself. Stay true to who and what you are. And if people still like you, that's great! If they don't, that's their problem."

Sting: "Intellectually I'm probably a Republican."

Sting: “I see songs not as a commodity used up when the album goes off the charts, which is often the case with pop songs. I see them as a body of work. Life should be breathed into them.”

Sting: "Yoga is almost like music in a way; there's no end to it."

Sting: "That sense of failure, I don't know where people put it who don't write songs and aren't able to emote physically. It must go somewhere."

Sting: "I can't really change my life to accommodate people who are jealous. I don't see why I should."

Sting: "It's never easy to write a song. It's the most difficult thing I do."

Sting: "I think I'm a focus for international attention."

Sting: "I see songs not as a commodity used up when the album goes off the charts, which is often the case with pop songs. I see them as a body of work. Life should be breathed into them."

Sting: "When the world is running down, you make the best of what's still around."

Sting: "I see music as one language. If one musical form eats its own tail, it dies. So it needs to be a mongrel, it needs to be hybridized."

Sting: "I don't think happiness is necessarily the reason we're here. I think we're here to learn and evolve, and the pursuit of knowledge is what alleviates the pain of being human."

Sting: "I find that the rhythm of going on long walks will suggest melodies."

Sting: "I miss England. I miss the weather. I've spent most of the last 25 years on tour. I'm ready to come home."

Sting: "I don't understand American football at all. It looks like all-in wrestling with crash helmets."

Sting: "I can't fly a flag for monogamy or whatever the opposite is; it depends on the person and on the situation."

Sting: "I think you can get the wrong impression about me from my work and think I'm always a bit down. I'm not that way at all. I'm fun-loving."

Sting: "I hate most of what constitutes rock music, which is basically middle-aged crap."

Sting: "I've only paid lip service to a spiritual life."

Sting: "My friends are Peter Gabriel, Bruce Springsteen, and we're singing about mortality, getting older. It's an interesting time."

Sting: "I want to get old gracefully. I want to have good posture, I want to be healthy and be an example to my children."

Sting: "I can't really change my life to accommodate people who are jealous. I don't see why I should."

Sting: “I try to give the media as many confusing images as I can to retain my freedom. What’s real is for my children and the people I live with.”

Sting: "I don't need to manufacture trauma in my life to be creative. I have a big enough reservoir of sadness or emotional trauma to last me."

Sting: "I'm very much afraid of being mad - that's my one fear."

Sting: "An uncle of mine emigrated to Canada and couldn't take his guitar with him. When I found it in the attic, I'd found a friend for life."

Sting: "It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile."