Those have been the two biggest challenges of my life: trying to follo — Chris Martin

"Up until 23, the concept of death hadnt occurred to me, then someone asked me if Id heard about Jonty, this friend from school. I said, "No, what?" "Hes dead." I used to play football with him. Thats amazing, isnt it? Life is right now. Its not a morbid realisation, its exciting, I find that feeling of time constraint very liberating. Nobody has an answer. We all die in the end. So come on, lets do something now. source"

"I know Im going to get shit for saying this, but yeah, I dont want to be too happy. To write I have to feel slightly sorry for myself. You have to be in a slightly self-obsessed state of mind to sit at a piano for six hours and not worry about meeting someone for a date. My best songs come when I have that feeling that Ive left the party early. And the other reason our songs are all about struggling and worrying and being beleaguered is my dad. Hes a terrible worrier. Hes always after the next thing. And I am too. Luckily the other members are more relaxed. Three other members like me and wed go nuts."

"I definitely believe in God. How can you look at anything and not be over-whelmed by the miraculousness of it?"

"“I always ring my dad when I want to quit, and he goes, [in a plummy voice] ‘Well I wouldn’t give up yet, boy.’ So I think, ‘All right then. I won’t.’ He’d be a brilliant boxing trainer. He sprays me down, rinses out my mouth and tells me to get back in the ring and sock that (Alan) McGee fella for six.” source"

"Whats good about the way we write songs is that I never quite know what Im doing cause I cant read music. source"

"Theyd all left for America — they were short-term lets — so theyd always leave food and, cos we didnt have much money, we would eat the rest of their cornflakes and listen to Ricky (Gervais) on XFM. source source"

"Be the change that you wish to see in the world."

"we are engaged in a grim experiment never before attempted. We are subjecting whole populations to exposure to chemicals which animal experiments have proved to be extremely poisonous and in many cases cumulative in their effect. These exposures now begin at or before birth and-unless we change our methods-will continue through the lifetime of those now living. No one knows what the result will be, because we have no previous experience to guide us."

"pity this busy monster, manunkind, not. Progress is a comfortable disease: your victim (death and life safely beyond) plays with the bigness of his littleness"

"I believe that the unity of man as opposed to other living things derives from the fact that man is the conscious life of himself. Man is conscious of himself, of his future, which is death, of his smallness, of his impotence; he is aware of others as others; man is in nature, subject to its laws even if he transcends it with his thought."

"“We need brains, is the bottom line,” Ivy said. “We’re not hunter-gatherers anymore. We’re all living like patients in the intensive care unit of a hospital. What keeps us alive isn’t bravery, or athleticism, or any of those other skills that were valuable in a caveman society. It’s our ability to master complex technological skills. It is our ability to be nerds. We need to breed nerds.”"

"I have been clinically depressed for most of my life. I once used drugs to fix it. Then I stopped. I stopped because I decided they were making me stupid, and Id rather be miserable than stupid. I am what I am."