Robbie Williams quotes: 40 at 40
As the Rock DJ singer celebrates a milestone birthday, Alice Vincent selects some of his most outlandish, revealing and insightful quotes

Robbie Williams, who has been in the spotlight since he was 16, turns 40 today. While the pop star has now settled down in LA with his wife, Ayda Field and his daughter, Teddy Rose, he remains one of the most entertaining motor mouths in music. Over the course of a career in and out of Take That, writing the six biggest selling albums in British history and winning 17 Brit Awards, he has also given us these pearls of wisdom.
Here are 40 of them, listed in order from least to most silly.

40. "I think you're very lucky to find somebody you can coexist with without straying or going mad or being angry. That's whether you're Liam Gallagher and Nicole Appleton, Robbie Williams and Ayda Field, or Tim and June from down the road."
39. "I've deliberately tried to calm myself down because eventually I want to be a good role model to my kids."
38. "I’m on good form. I’m an older guy. I feel healthy, I’ve been training, I’m looking after myself, I get up early. I look after the dogs. I’m happy."
37. "When Daddy goes to work, there’s a mouth to feed, a point to life and a reason to do things"
2012
36. "What was I like? I had a high-pitched voice. Sounded a bit like a girl. Spoke with a Stoke accent, tremendously naive. Overconfident. Tremendously overconfident. And underconfident at the same time – really, really bad combination! Gets you places, though."
35. "It's success, not fame, that is quite addictive. I'm addicted to a lot of things and, as it happens, success is one of them."
34. "Kim Gavin thought I was a pain in the arse. And for the job that he had to do at the time, that’s understandable. Because I didn’t apply myself. But I have a tremendous relationship with Kim now. And I’m applying myself."
33. "There is a lot of snobbery towards pop music, to me and pop in general - it's kind of a despised art form."
32. "It would be great to see somebody like Kid Rock kissing a man. But I'm sure that he wouldn't like the prospect of it put to him, and I won't even go there with Eminem."
31. "People change. I wouldn't like to be accountable for the interviews I've done, or the person I was when I was 20, 21."
30. "I am not as bad as people would suggest. Not as good as I would like to be."
29. "Even though I disliked Gaz [Gary Barlow] or the regime we were under, I didn't want him to hurt. I did want to win, but I didn't want him to have the fall from Grace that he did."
28. "I have a gigantic ego and need to be at the top of the pile and be doing amazingly well; also, at the same time, I'm just pleased to be anywhere"
27. "I met Courtney Love and she said she'd like to sleep with me, but she couldn't cos of my "pop-star thing"... so I said to her I couldn't sleep with her either - cos of her 'ugly thing'..."
26. "I miss having someone to cuddle up and have an early night with. But I'm looking. Meanwhile, I'm having a few relationships that don't mean much."
25. "I'd make a better U.S. president than George W. Bush. Bush is an idiot. I'm a better public speaker than him. It makes you wonder about the voters."
24. "I think there are ghosts. I haven't seen or heard anything. I've definitely felt something, but it's not scary."
23. "Some of the best times in my life happened under the influence of drugs... I'd still be doing it if I could make good judgement calls. I'd still be doing it if I didn't blow up to the size of an aircraft hangar, because it was a great time."
22. "There aren't that many people that I'd go "ooh, they're lovely", but then I've slept with them all!"
21. "Madonna looked amazing. I can't believe she's 89 and looks like that."
20. "When people come out of rehab, they usually go to secondary rehab for another six months and then enter back into society gradually. But I came out and did Top Of The Pops straight away!"
19. "There's no point regretting things. If you can't do the time, don't do the crime. Life's too short to worry about things I've said."
18. "Look at Paul McCartney, look at Elton John. They're jealous of Justin Timberlake. I'm sure they were jealous of me when I was in my imperial phase"
17. "I can do anything I want to do really, I might as well."
16. "I'm quite open to the fact that I might be a tinfoil-hat freak"
15. "Scrap the OBE, [Gary Barlow's] got that now. Straight to Knighthood."
14. "I love reality TV. It's the only stuff I watch. But yeah, if this CD fails and Take That doesn't do too well, Strictly Come Dancing then straight to panto"
13. "Last time I came here I got the sack - thank f*** for that."
12. "I picked up a TV set in my hotel room and walked right out of the building. My room was on the ground floor and I actually threw it back through the window, on to my bed."
11. "I've got this brilliant thing where I go, 'I'm Robbie Williams', and people are interested in what I want to say - which is amazing because I'm just an idiot from Stoke-on-Trent."
10. "As a 29-year-old, the only thing that I can possibly think is that if I'm still performing at 50, it's because I'll have had disastrous marriages and I have to pay for them."
9. "The world's a lot more exciting with One Direction in it"
8. "Good evening everybody, my name is Robbie Williams, this is my band and for the next two hours YOUR ASS IS MINE!"
7."It was like my favourite pub burning down."
Williams discussing watching the birth of his daughter
6. "I should not call it my office. I should call it my adulation top-up room!"
Williams on referring to the room in which he uses the internet
5. "We'd probably have sex. That's what this is all about isn't it? I want him to be grateful for it. Let's get it out in the open. I want to shag Liam Gallagher"
4. "An awful lot of gay pop stars pretend to be straight. I'm going to start a movement of straight pop stars pretending to be gay."
3. "It's a huge responsibility being a solo act."
2. "I am the only man who can say he's been in Take That and at least two members of the Spice Girls"
1. "I have only one ambition, which is to be famous."
The ending sentence of Williams' CV before his Take That days