Benjamin Clementine

If you have parents who can't show you love, a kid can grow up to look arrogant. Because they need to create a fake self. Or they think they're more powerful than they really are.

Now I'm standing in front of a thousand people. They're all looking at me, but they're sitting down. They're surrendered, so I have to keep on proving myself to them and giving them all my passion.

I'm actually doing what I like doing, which is mixing opera music and classical music with soul and folk. And I was writing and talking about what I've actually experienced, and I don't think that's very common.

I do music to tell people my thoughts and opinions about life, emotions, politics, everything.

People want a beautiful story. Hopefully my life story is still beautiful, but that metro stuff doesn't make it much more pitiful.

Life is life. You have to learn how to forgive people and how to gain forgiveness for yourself.

It stayed with me - the Bible has stayed with me. I've grown out of it because, obviously, you live life for yourself and have your choice to believe what you want to believe in, but I know that the Bible can be used to appreciate life.

In Paris, I was really singing for the sake of living. But eventually people said, 'Keep going; you've got a great voice,' and I started having confidence in my voice all of a sudden. That's when I started creating my own music.

I don't have a flat anywhere. I'm registered in the U.K. for tax purposes, I suppose, and my mail goes to my parents.

The greatest in heroes in life are the anonymous. That's what I believe. Your neighbours are heroes. People who, when you walk down the street, you see them feeding their little baby - these people are heroes because they are living under difficult situations, but they're still trying to save a life.

I know that New York is big - there are huge buildings - but, in fact, it's quite small and contained... I like it when cities are melancholic. When it started snowing, for example, I felt very lonely. I felt very comfortable and very relaxed. When that happens, I write. So I've been writing, not a lot, but I'm inspired every day.

I've learned in the little bit of my life so far that you can't fool people. And so I only tell people what I think about: my ambitions, my dreams, what inspires me.