I don't have anything to say, so let's get on with it...
- Robert Smith [Heard in concert, 30/11/96]

The Cure, is the kind of band that wanders in and out of the mainstream's gaze.
- Robert Smith - The Boston Globe 1997

You know, the Internets made us more aware of what people think about us.
- Robert Smith - From Australian Radio 3RRR 20/10/00

I'd rather spend my time looking at the sky than listening to Whitney Houston.
- Robert Smith

...I mean there's a Holy Grail for Cure fans which has always been the Disintegration tour of 1989 and I was quite shocked to find that as we were going along this year the internet reviews were getting more and more glowing. They've reached the giddy heights of 'as-good-as-or-if-not-better-than-the-Disintegration-tour'. There's no higher accolade from Cure fans than that. It's been great. [Referring to the Dream Tour 2000]
- Robert Smith X-Press Magazine 9/00

You don't really know a song until you play it live.
- Robert Smith

That we truly were an alternative group.
- Robert Smith [Referring to what should be on his epitaph]

I think we're in the Top 10 most bootlegged bands in history according to a web-poll. Pretty much every show we ever do is bootlegged, but it�'s very rare that one is of good enough quality to be listened to by anything other than the most fanatical people though I suppose only fanatical people buy bootlegs.
- Robert Smith - X-Press Magazine 9/00

It has nothing to do with me if there's a lot of bootlegs of the Cure; I've never objected to them, no-one's ever had their tape recorder confiscated at a Cure show, it doesn't bother me in the slightest.
- Robert Smith

The atmosphere at the end was incredible, it was so bad. They all thought it was commercial suicide. This was one of my blackest moments. I thought it was my masterpiece, and they thought it was shit. They'd turned up expecting Kiss Me Part 2, and they got Pornography Part 2.
- Robert Smith Uncut 1/2/00 [Referring to the moment the band unveiled the finished Disintegration to their record company-the record company was wrong - Disintegration was on the music charts for 55 weeks]

Seeing someone f**k a monkey doesn't particulary shock me. I get much more shocked by someone attacking someone else for doing it.
- Robert Smith [Referring to his views on pornography]

...even if they [the fans] think some of the early singles are lightweight or they want you to go back to something you did three albums ago, they're still prepared to stick with the group because they know that I'm writing songs and recording them not to be famous, but because I want to.
- Robert Smith - Addicted To Noise '97

It's a bit of a crass generalization, but people whose favorite Cure albums are Pornography and Disintegration are generally more alert and have thought about things.
- Robert Smith

This is one of three classic Cure albums [Bloodflowers]. I accept now that The Cure have a sound, and this album is the sound of The Cure. The difference is, now I like the idea, I like the fact that you know it's The Cure within 30 seconds of it starting. It's a testament to what we've achieved.
- Robert Smith Uncut 1/2/00

We wouldn't have been able to handle the fame if it would've hit us all of the sudden. When I was young I always dreamed of having a group that was adored by few and ignored by the rest of the world, like Nick Drake. Fortunately, when we became famous, I had no time to reflect upon anything anymore.
- Robert Smith De Standaard 16/11/01

It's been the most enjoyable Cure tour I've ever done. I think that's probably because we've been playing songs that I really like, the side of The Cure that I really prefer live, which is the darker side. [Referring to the Dream Tour set lists]
- Robert Smith X-Press Magazine 9/00

There are countries where the organizers don't know what they're doing or what's going on - but I wouldn't name Italy and Spain!
- Robert Smith

We started off the tour [swing tour] in Britain and the difference is quite stunning between the audience there and over here [U.S.]. I mean, they're so loud over here, I've forgotten how...keen everyone is to having a good time in America.
- Robert Smith - Radio station KROQ 1995

...but what we do I think attracts a certain type of person. I don't think age has much to do with it, you either get into it or you don't. You could be 16 or 60 and you're either gonna like us or not depending on your sensibilities..
- Robert Smith X-Press Magazine 9/00

[After listening to old tapes for The Greatest Hits Album] I realized we have been playing 'Let's Go To Bed' wrong since it has been released. The bassline has been played wrong for almost 20 years. I still haven't got round to telling them. [the band] 
- Robert Smith - JAM! Showbiz 11/01

I hardly ever listen to any of our old stuff now. Once the songs have been recorded and put on to vinyl they become someone else's entertainment, not mine.
- Robert Smith

...soon I started to buy records on my pocket money; the first one was Bowie's Ziggy Stardust. And the first concert I attended was Hendrix on the Isle of Wright; I was 10.
- Robert Smith -Les Inrockuptibles 28/10/97

Jimi Hendrix changed my life. Each generation influences the following one and as a consequence brings it back to the past... [Referring to the influence The Cure purportedly has had on young English bands]
- Robert Smith- L'Express 2/00

I became an adult in an extreme way. I was recently sorting some old photographs and I found another Robert Smith wearing make-up, charicatural and aggressive. I didn't invent this character: he escaped from me. My anger is still the same, but I make it positive.
- Robert Smith - L'Express 2/00

Mary has been the great influence in my life, the rock that stays strong when I lose my head. She noticed, for example that I become aggressive and unfriendly when I cut my hair. So I make it long. Mary is very maternal with me. And very, very tolerant.
- Robert Smith

[Referring to his passion for music] It's not always easy to cope with it. I realize I'm still with Mary just because she has always been so incredibly tolerant with this fire that moves me. I only live for my music, the rest is of no importance.
- Robert Smith

Refusing to grow up is like refusing to accept your limitations. That's why I don't think we'll ever grow up.
- Robert Smith - Melody Maker 7/3/92

I do a job I really, really love and I kind of have fun with. People think you can't be grown up unless you're moaning about your job.
- Robert Smith

...there have been very few virtuosos in the history of the group, but there have been a lot of really nice people. The Cure backstage is a notoriously fun-filled zone.
- Robert Smith - From Jam TV

If any of our songs ever did make it on the top ten, I'd disband the group immediately.
- Robert Smith
I'm in my 40s now, and I found I was having to go to people who are in their 30s to ask their permission to do things, and that cannot be right. [on one of the reasons why the band has left its record label]
- Robert Smith

We [the Cure] are supposed to be very mysterious, reading French Romantic poetry by candlelight.
- Robert Smith - The Age - Melbourne Online 2/11/97

I've had enough of being perceived as a doomy Goth casualty.
- Robert Smith

The Press try to categorize me a 'gloom-and-doom' singer. But, take a look at Morrissey! That man's a professional moaner!
- Robert Smith
I've always spent more time with a smile on my face than not, but the thing is, I don't write about it.
- Robert Smith - Rolling Stone 1997

I don't think of death in a romantic way anymore.
- Robert Smith - L'Express 2/00

I was 21, but I felt really old. I actually felt older than I do now. I had absolutely no hope for the future. I felt life was pointless. I had no faith in anything. I just didn�'t see there was much point in continuing with life. In the next two years, I genuinely felt that I wasn�'t going to be alive for much longer. I tried particularly hard to make sure I wasn't.
- Robert Smith - Uncut 1/2/00

[Referring to WMS lower than expected record sales and concert attendance] I'm not going to worry about the Cure slipping down into the second division; it doesn't bother me because I never expected to be in the first division anyway. [A soccer reference]
- Robert Smith - Alternative Press

You can't drink on an eight hour flight, pass out, and then go onstage...well you can, but then you're Spandau Ballet.
- Robert Smith

I think the rock'n'roll myth of living on the edge is a pile of crap.
- Robert Smith - Spin Magazine 7/87

I go off-roading occasionally, drunkenly at night across fields.
- Robert Smith

I never wanted to be the personality of the group. When I was with the Banshees, I was only a guitarist, and it's great being just that. What happens with this group is that the others don't talk, only when they're drunk. Well, Roger speaks all the time, but what happens is he just speaks stupidities. I hope nobody translates this interview to English. Roger, I'm sorry, I didn't want to say that. [laughs]
- Robert Smith - De Standaard 16/11/01 (Belgium Newspaper)

There is a reason for me always shoe-gazing. I simply can't look into the eyes of several thousand people.
- Robert Smith - Article by Jane Stevenson, Toronto Sun

If I didn't wear make-up I couldn't get on stage. I'd be much too self conscious.
- Robert Smith

Sometimes I'll get to the end of a song, open my eyes and there's all these faces peering at me. It's quite horrifying.
- Robert Smith
There's no hope of me becoming completely relaxed on stage. If I did, I'd sit down and doze off.
- Robert Smith

I wake up and look at myself and think, 'yuck!
- Robert Smith - MTV

Nobody notices me. Nobody thinks I'm me. But then I look less like me than most of the people coming to our concerts.
- Robert Smith

I'm big in the uncle department...I like having kids for weekends...I just like taking them out and teaching them bad tricks...I hate the idea of being a dad. I'm too undisciplined and too selfish to be a father.
- Robert Smith - From Jam TV

A couple of years ago, we went to Eurodisney. That too was bearable, although it was a bit weird when Mickey Mouse came to ask for an autograph.
- Robert Smith

When we started I wasn't the singer. I was the drunk rhythm guitarist who wrote all these weird songs.
- Robert Smith

I actually listen to a lot of instrumental music at home because I find myself criticizing lyrics. I hear something interesting and the intro sounds really good and then here come the lyrics and I think, 'Oh f * * k!'
- Robert Smith

I honestly don't class myself as a songwriter. I've got 'musician' written on my passport. That's even funnier.
- Robert Smith - The Hit 21/9/85

Each time I play a song it seems more real.
- Robert Smith

I never answer if someone knocks on my door and only the band and my manager have my phone number. In any case my phone doesn't ring so I never notice it. I occasionally just walk past and pick it up to see if anyone's there.
- Robert Smith
I hate Madonna! She looks like she stinks!
- Robert Smith

What I really had against Lol, is that he had taken away more than a year of my time...our argument puts a shadow over my life.[Speaking about the former band member, Laurence Tolhurst court case against him that Robert eventually won]
- Robert Smith De Standaard - 16/11/01 (Belgium Newspaper)

[Robert Smith referring to some of his favorite songs]<
Faith: I don't think I'll ever write a song that'll ever move me as much as Faith, that'll change my life as much as that song did, or encapsulates a period of my life as well as that one does.
Just Like Heaven: The best pop song the Cure has ever done. All the sounds meshed, it was one take, and it was perfect. I love Dinosaur Jr.'s version of the song, and they've influenced how we play it.
A Forest: The archetypal Cure sound, it was probably the turning point when people started listening to the group and thinking we could achieve something, including me.
- Robert Smith - Chicago Tribune 12/7/92