Extract 1:



[Prince takes exception to Hoskyns' 1997 MOJO article when he interviewed people who had worked with Prince (including Susan Rogers and Owen Husney)]:-



"You think Susan Rogers knows me?" he asks. "You think she knows anything about my music?"



Shocked lump in throat, I respectfully suggest that yes, she might know a thing or two.



"Susan Rogers, for the record, doesn't know anything about my music. Not one thing."



I see.



"The only person who knows anything about my music...is me".



Extract 2:



[Prince takes exception to Jon Bream telling Hoskyns that the young Prince didn't make eye contact with him for 4 years]:-



"Jon Bream didn't know me," he says when he's recovered from his virtual fit of squeals. "How you gonna write about me when life is ever evolving? We human beings are separate, but we become even more separate by putting labels on each other. My wife knows me. She's the one who brings me tea in the morning. She's the one I call God's Queen. Jon Bream didn't know me. Maybe I appeared to be shy, but 'appeared' is the key word there. I've only really ever given you music. I'd give cryptic little answers to questions that made no sense. I've always really been the same person.



Jeez, whadda ya say to that?! I'm sitting here literally dumbfounded by a man who didn't speak a word for years and is now spouting forth this heady brew of mysticism and embitteredness.



"People think they know my music," he continues. "They think they know where my songs come from. But you can't speculate on a song like The Ballad of Dorothy Parker. People pick these things up and that becomes the truth. It makes me fear for the planet. Well, not fear, because I don't believe there's any such word as 'fear', but it makes me pity the planet.



Extract 3:



"Do you know how wonderful it would be if you and I could respect one another? We could really do something positive. Otherwise you're gonna further confuse an already confused reader."



Extract 4:



"All these non-singing, non-dancing, wish-I-had-me-some-clothes fools who tell me my albums suck - why should I pay any attention to them?"



Worse is to come. When I rashly let slip the fact that I once wrote a whole book about him, he asks what it was called. Imp Of The Perverse, I inform him.



"Imp, huh? That's what, a small person?"



Um, not really. More a sprite, a mischievous creature...



"What about perverse? That's the same thing as perverted, right?"



I meant it more in terms of, you know, deviating from the norm...as you were doing in the 80s.



He's less than convinced.



The book is a total celebration of your music. I protest.



"Is it truth or is it conjecture?"



Oh shit, not back to that...



"Did you come to the source for the truth?"



You think I didn't try to get an interview?!?



"Yeah, but what gives you the right to write a book of conjecture about my life?"



Er, its's a free country?



Extract 5:



[Hoskyns asks if releasing his latest album on Arista, after saying he would only release his music through the Internet, is part of a plan to bring him back into the 'music mainstream'].



"Well, understand that Arista signed to me. I don't have a contract with them. Our agreement is just for Rave Un2 The Joy Fantastic. [Label boss] Clive Davis may not even be at Arista this time next year. As for the 'mainstream', we have to define what that word means. It might mean something different to me than it means to you. My mainstream is the one that goes to my bank account! Mainstream is the way Ani DiFranco is doing it. She's taking $7 an album where some rapper is getting $1.50 and out of it he has to pay all his costs."



Extract 6:



"I like positivity, truth. Why would I want to listen to music about bitches and shooting people? It's just somebody's idea of what 'bitches' are. See, Eve [hip hop guest on Rave Un2] changed her groove up for me, and that says something about me and something about her and something about the record industry that will accept that. And yes, we all have to take responsibility for things we may have sung in the past. I take responsibility by changing."



Extract 7:



"It's funny, when you see a picture of yourself at 10 years old, why do we call it an 'old' picture? Language is so confining. In fact, I might just stop talking again and not do interviews."