How to be Famous

A book is a beautiful, paper mausoleum, or tomb, in which to store ideas...to keep the bones of your thoughts in one place, for all time. I just want to say..."Hello. We can hear you. The words survived.

You can’t meet your heroes—because they are, in the end, just an idea, that lives inside you.

think about how brave it is, to do this: to queue up, and meet your hero. There’s something incredibly intimate about reading, or listening, or looking at someone else’s art. When it truly moves you—when you whoop when Prince whoops in Purple Rain; or cry when Bastian cries in The NeverEnding Story, it is as if you have been them, for a while. You traveled inside them, in their shoes, breathing their breath. Moving with their pulse. A faint ghost of them imprinted, inside you, forever—it responds when you meet them, as if it recognizes its own reflection.

This is what happens, when it feels like the weight of the world is crushing right down on you. You fear it’s going to change you forever. And you’re right. It is. It’s going to turn you into something that is both beautiful, and the most indestructible thing on the planet. I am both touched, and amused, by how apt its name is: Hope. “I relate to you,” I say to the Hope Diamond, as I stand there, staring at it. “I get what you are saying. You are the sparkliest metaphor I have ever seen.

There is one terrible weakness you can have if you amusedly and self-deprecatingly describe yourself as an artist and become famous. One letdown if you become loved by millions and your work is meaningful work and that is if some of the millions that know you and love you are teenage girls. There is nothing more shaming than to be loved by teenage girls. The love of teenage girls is not merely substandard or worthless it is an active mortification to an artist. Our language is full of how little we think of artists that are loved by teenage girls, we talk of mad fans and teenyboppers and little girls wetting their knickers. Ohh, you can take those girls' money and become elevated on their devotion and enjoy them putting you at number one. You can do all those things, no band ever refused them but you do not respect those girls, you do not want to talk to them or look them in the eye, or hang out with them or love them back. You do not talk about them unless it is to turn to your cool fans, the men, and mouth "Sorry, these mad girls have crushed the party. So embarrassing!" (...)Men are the right fans to have. This is why rock is cooler than pop, acid house is cooler than disco, prog is cooler than boy bands. Things boys love are cooler than things girls love. That is a simple fact. Boys love clever things cleverly, girls love foolish things foolishly. How awful it would be love bands like teenage girls do? How awful it would be to be the wrong kind of fan? A girl. How awful it would be to be a dumb, hysterical, screaming teenage girl? How amazing it is to be a dumb, hysterical, screaming teenage girl? ...

I hate stories where the conclusion is that women just have to suffer and get stronger,” Julia said. “Those are the worst stories.

He’s not a person—he’s a place you travel to. Everything changes when you’re with him. He is the mayor of good times. I remember a quote I read: “It was no man you wanted, believe me—it was a world.

And so part of the declaring of love means you are working to a commission, now. You are not the sole architect of the person you are building. Someone else is looking over your blueprints--nodding, enthusiastically,over this turret--so you build the turret bigger! and remaining tactfully silent over an ostentatious fountain, which you immediately and silently scrap. You have entered a new world--in which there are two opinions on what will make the very best you. And if your partner is wise, and kind, and has the same taste as you, you will make amazing things together. And if your partner is broken, or impatient, or has darker needs--is unknowingly trying to build you in the shape of another woman he once knew, and lost; is trying to lean into your foundations to make his own stronger--you will make something with rotten walls, and impossible angles, which will, one day in the future, collapse. But that is all part of becoming an adult. That is the difference between girls and women. That they are finally ready to hear the secret of what makes them them,. That they are strong enough--for good, or for ill--to ask someone what is, unexpectedly,the most terrifying, relevatory question, on Earth; one you have to be brave, and ready, to hear: "Why do you love me?

Because the secret of everyone who comes to London—who comes to any big city—is that they came here because they did not feel normal, back at home.

But that is all part of becoming an adult. That is the difference between girls and women. That they are finally ready to hear the secret of what makes them them. That they are strong enough - for good, or for ill - to ask someone what is, unexpectedly, the most terrifying, revelatory question, on Earth; one you have to be brave, and ready, to hear: "Why do you love me?

How amazing to go to a gig thinking of nothing but how loud you will shout; how hard you will dance; how much you will sweat; how tightly you will hug your friends, as your favourite song plays. How amazing to react to music in the way music wants you - to become an ecstatic animal.

You don’t live in London. You play London - to win. That’s why we’re all here. It is a city full of contestants, each chasing one of a million possible prizes: wealth, love, fame. Inspiration.

First class is a simple visual representation of who has all the money in the world: guys who look like this.

You are the new religion. You are the new craze. You are the next stage in evolution. You are so palpably my superior, in every way, that I tremble like a child in your presence. You make my head spin. You make my heart burst. You make my soul explode, every fucking minute I am with you. What I am inescapably heading towards is , in this monologue, which might be the last thing I ever say, is: Dutch, I'm in love with you." His face was as open and wondering as a child, looking at snow. "I love you, Jo.

...my old life was over, and I know - as I had always suspected - that kissing John Kite is the greatest luxury there is.

What other people think is none of your business,

can claim all drinks ‘on expenses’. This is one of many odd things about my life. I can get drunk for free – indeed, I travel around the world for free, interviewing bands – but I cannot afford new clothes, or ‘stuff’, or a flat bigger than a medium-sized shed. I live a life in which luxuries are essentials, but practical things unaffordable. It lends an odd perspective. I essentially lead the life of a globe-trotting, drunken, yet bankrupt playboy.

We’ve mutually enthused about Julian Cope – ‘Oh my word, “Safesurfer”!’ – and Jerry’s tried to tell me I should like Slint, which I am resistant to, as, to me, they sound like people who are deliberately making horrible music that make their mums sad. ‘The album’s called Spiderland,’ I say. ‘Spiderland would be the worst possible place you could find up the Faraway Tree.’ And Jerry laughs! I’ve made a famous comedian laugh!

We going to the aftershow?’ Krissi wobbles slightly, under the impact of so much booze. ‘But they’re collections of the worst people on God’s earth, herded into a mosh pit of cuntery, all blahing on about how brilliant they are,’ I tell him.

Everyone else I knew—my dad, John Kite, me—laid out the entire buffet of their personality straightaway; as if we had pork pies and cakes stapled to our chests. Zee, it seems, only brought it out if someone actually said they were hungry.

Still, life goes on, doesn't it? It really always does. It keeps bloody going on. I mean it in a good way, of course. However much you fuck things up, life just keeps going on, washing you downriver - even if you're just floating there, like a listless dead thing, making no effort, mouthing, 'Oh God, oh God', face down underneath the water. The current bears you on until, soon, the awful events are just tiny specks, left far behind you...

We are Henceforth-mongers, trying to make our Henceforth the most enticing. Because the secret of everyone who comes to London - who comes to any big city - is that they came here because they did not feel normal, back at home. The only way they will ever feel normal is if they hijack popular culture with their weirdness... and make the rest of the world suddenly wish to become as weird as them.

The idea of simply trotting around the world with John, for a year or more, is obviously, what Willy Wonka would have put in a special chocolate bar for me.

I like the blue one too, baby" he said, companionably.