“You don’t have to believe in God to do the programme. You just have to accept that there’s a higher power – it could be the lamp in the corner of the room, for all they care. Some people use nature, the ocean, their d**k – whatever comes to mind.”

“The funny thing is, I’m actually quite interested in the Bible, and I’ve tried to read it several times. But I’ve only ever got as far as the bit about Moses being 720 years old, and I’m like, `What were these people smoking back then?’ The bottom line is I don’t believe in a bloke called God in a white suit who sits on a fluffy cloud any more than I believe in a bloke called the Devil with a three-pronged fork and a couple of horns. But I believe that there’s day, there’s night, there’s good, there’s bad, there’s black, there’s white. If there is a God, it’s nature. If there’s a Devil, it’s nature.”

“I remember coming to in white room, with white walls, and people all around me covered in white sheets and thinking, F**k, I’m in the morgue. Then I heard a hissing noise next to my bed.Pssst, pssst.I looked down and there was this kid holding up a pen and a copy of „Bark at the Moon“.‘Will you sign this for me?’ he asked.‘F**k off,’ I told him. ‘I’m dead.’”

“I remember one time, back in the day, I was at his [Bill Ward] house and he said, ‘Oh, ’ello Ozzy. You’ll never guess what? I’ve just come out of a coma.’‘What d’you mean, a coma? That’s one stage removed from being dead. You know that, don’t you, Bill?’‘All I know is I went to bed on Friday, and now it’s Tuesday, and I only just woke up. That’s a coma, isn’t it?’‘No, that’s taking too many drugs and drinking too much cider and sleeping for three days in a row, you d**k.’”

“They teach you how to handle life in England, but they don’t teach you a thing about death. There’s no book telling you what to do when your mum or dad dies.”

“I’m not so comfortable with politicians. Meeting them always just feels weird and a bit creepy, no matter who it is. For example, I met Tony Blair during The Osbournes period at this thing called the Pride of Britain Awards. He was all right, I suppose; very charming. But I couldn’t get over the fact that our young soldiers were dying out in the Middle East and he could still find the time to hang around with pop stars.Then he came over to me and said, ‘I was in a rock’n’roll band once, y’know?’I said, ‘So I believe, Prime Minister.’‘But I could never work out the chords to “Iron Man”.’I wanted to say, ‘F**k me, Tony, that’s a staggering piece of information, that is. I mean, you’re at war with Afghanistan, people are getting blown up all over the place, so who honestly gives a f**k that you could never work out the chords to “Iron Man”?’But they’re all the same, so there’s no point getting wound up about it.”

“It’s just human nature – isn’t it? – to be more attracted to something that’s taboo. If someone tells you not to smoke, you wanna smoke. If they say, ‘Don’t do drugs,’ you wanna do drugs. That’s why I’ve always thought that the best way to stop people taking drugs is to legalise the f**king things. It would take people about five seconds to realise that being an addict is a terribly unattractive and pathetic way to be, whereas at the moment it still has that kind of rebel cool vibe to it, y’know?”