We need to dig deep and give people a reason to be optimistic just as Obama is doing in America. Because in the same way that outcome of the U.S. elections will change the course of events there and around the world, so too do politics here in Britai...
In my hand luggage I always have my camera, iPod, make-up bag, tooth brush, cleansing products, clean underwear, socks and a change of clothes in case anything goes missing at the other end - and of course my passport.
Just when you think you've got your kids figured out, they change on you. For somebody who's controlling, you can't control it. Of course, I don't think I'm controlling, but that's what I've been told!
Music is, of course, a universal emotional experience, cutting across cultures and languages. I studied piano for ten years as a child and consider that experience one of the most valuable in my life.
I'm fascinated by the people I grew up with and the mistakes I made - and God, I have screwed up. I like writing about where it all went off course.
You have to understand that during the course of our show, we were a family for five hours a day, five days a week, maybe four days a week. And we experienced the same things that we experienced in our own family.
Over the course of a day, you get to get a feel for where you're playing, so when you get out on stage, you already feel like you've had a bit of a bonding experience with them.
The Metropolitan Opera, of course, is the gold standard in opera. The Met experience includes the huge stage, the vast audience, the elaborate sets. Anyone who saw 'Faust' there - I did - knows exactly what hell is like, complete with fire, smoke and...
I have my own experience in Indonesia, of course. Sometimes in these transition situations, the new governments are still clumsy and awkward in responding to this new environment in which they operate. The only thing in their DNA is the old regime.
From my quarter-a-century experience as a fighter for democracy, there is never a final victory for democracy. It is always a struggle in every generation, and you have to take up the course of time and time again.
Truly we have had enough experience with sufferance and protection which could be revoked at will. Consequently, the only reasonable Course of action is to work for publicly legalized guarantees.
It's easy to be lazy when there's food lying around backstage or there's a fast-food joint a couple blocks away. But if you walk a little further, ask around a bit, of course there are exciting things to discover.
Listen - of course money changes everything, but so does sunlight, and so does food: These are powerful but neutral energy sources, neither inherently good nor evil but shaped only by the way we use them.
Of course I love cooking Eastern European food because I'm a Jew, but I also love making roast chicken. I love making Hungarian goulash. There are a lot of egg noodles in my cooking.
Mankind: A quality of life upgrade is available to each and every one of you. It should give you a quality of life upgrade, which means no drugs, no alcohol, no fast food - unless, of course, it's a mallard.
Of course, with well-masticated food playing the role of social glue, it's absolutely essential that everyone clear their plate. Sod the starving kiddies in Africa - it's the overfed ones here we need to worry about.
Don't ever dare to take your college as a matter of course - because, like democracy and freedom, many people you'll never know have broken their hearts to get it for you.
With Napster and the sharing of music, of course, there are going to be people who exploit it. Greed has no end. But there's a lot of good that could happen. We shouldn't let the economic concerns of the major labels infringe on our freedom to share ...
The great thing about using the past is that it gives you the most colossal freedom to invent. The research is necessary, of course, but no one writes a novel to dramatically illustrate what everybody already knows.
I've spoken often of how the fantasy genre is able to, with the greatest freedom among all the genres, take a metaphor and make it real. But of course that's only the starting point.
It is not because the truth is too difficult to see that we make mistakes... we make mistakes because the easiest and most comfortable course for us is to seek insight where it accords with our emotions - especially selfish ones.
