I found my sound early on. Look at U2: they haven't changed their music for 20 years. Anyway, many people come unstuck when they try to change what they do and what they are known for.

Inspiration doesn't really work like that - you're not looking out for it. Inspiration is something that tends to capture you rather than you capture it.

So I've had lots of different bands over the years who have stayed with me for certain tours.

All your travelling is together, you eat together, you're on stage as a band together, when you get to the sound-check the band and the crew are all together.

I love to go on tour and perform. I love all the parts of the process.

Yes, but the great thing about all the people - and I don't think there is any exception - who I've worked with is they've all been very, very talented musicians.

Right from day one, you know when you've written a good song.

I am constantly being told that I have been a big influence for many people, including other musicians.

So if you're on tour for eight months, a year... or whatever it is you definitely don't want arguments and I'm happy to say that I've always had a really nice bunch of people around me all the time.

When I was younger I was obsessed with writing, so even if I wanted to listen, I didn't have time.

This band - because this is myself on electric and acoustic guitars - we've done three tours together now and I really, really like it which is why I did the DVD as well.

You don't have to be rich and famous. You just have to be an ordinary person, doing extraordinary things. I'd like more people to know that it's there. Women's achievements still aren't recognised enough in many areas.

I've written what and when I want to. It's been about expressing myself. But with the degree, I had to learn to do everything in a very specific, disciplined way. I am very disciplined, but this demanded a totally different kind of discipline. A real challenge.

So, the combination of looking at lots of different people and how they react to each other and how they relate to each other and waiting for that inspiration is the thing that allows me to keep writing.

In America, you watch TV and think that's totally unreal, then you step outside and it's just the same.

I've always written in a free, unencumbered way.

Yesterday I was playing Beethoven's fifth, because I love that.

One of them would definitely be the Nelson Mandela gig, when I played the tribute song for him. He was up and dancing, and he really enjoyed it. It was a really lovely occasion.

I found my sound early on. Look at U2: they haven't changed their music for 20 years. Anyway, many people come unstuck when they try to change what they do and what they are known for.

When you're on tour you definitely don't want lots of arguments. It's very important that everybody gets on because you're in close proximity a great deal of the time.

It's a very organic process, and it has a specific order to it. I love to write, and once you've written, then you arrange. After the arrangement, you record it, and then you tour it.

Classical, Romantic, and Baroque music, that's what I really like.

My mother bought a piano, put it in the front room, and I just started writing my songs.

Writing music is just something that I was born to do.

Just an hour with you, and I understand why we had to meet.

That is one of the things about going on tour, that I get to work with some really talented people and it allows me to be able to listen to them as well - and just have fun on stage.

We used to think that revolutions are the cause of change. Actually it is the other way around: change prepares the ground for revolution.

I must stress here the point that I appreciate clarity, order, meaning, structure, rationality: they are necessary to whatever provisional stability we have, and they can be the agents of gradual and successful change.

Excuses change nothing, but make everyone feel better.

So, first you have to be able to play with a metronome. Then you take your freedom. If you play in an orchestra, you got to watch the conductor, he is like a metronome, but it is more difficult because he can change rhythms.

I wouldn't change Buffy for anything and I wouldn't change the course in which she has evolved but it is nice to be able to do something that is a little different.

For example, UNICEF works with governments to change legislation such as in India where a law was passed raising the age of compulsory school completion to keep children in school and away from the workplace for longer.

Great joy, especially after a sudden change of circumstances, is apt to be silent, and dwells rather in the heart than on the tongue.

I still feel that a movie has to attempt to say something - even if it fails miserably. But I've sort of given up on believing that I'm going to change the world with every film I choose to act in.

Don't knock the weather; nine-tenths of the people couldn't start a conversation if it didn't change once in a while.

You don't have to be the Dalai Lama to tell people that life's about change.

I knew that my staying up would not change the election result if I were defeated, while if elected I had a hard day ahead of me. So I thought a night's rest was best in any event.

It will always be a battle a day between those who want maximum change and those who want to maintain the status quo.

Being a father, well, I don't know if this is a change, but it makes me want to get out of here faster. Get off the clock. Just 'cause the baby is my reason for living, my reason for coming to work.

A liberal knows that the only certainty in this life is change but believes that the change can be directed toward a constructive end.

I was born not knowing and have had only a little time to change that here and there.

In their search for quality, people seem to be looking for permanency in a time of change.

The game has kept faith with the public, maintaining its old admission price for nearly thirty years while other forms of entertainment have doubled and tripled in price. And it will probably never change.

One day I actually took the list into the bathroom and I put it up against my face and looked in the mirror and I realized I had one of two choices, change the list or change myself.

But the real focus should be on people who are buying today because the base is so big it will take a long time for any change materialize on an overall basis.

Markets change, tastes change, so the companies and the individuals who choose to compete in those markets must change.

The psychological basis of the metropolitan type of individuality consists in the intensification of nervous stimulation which results from the swift and uninterrupted change of outer and inner stimuli.

Headteachers and governing bodies run schools and that won't change.

Using the power of decision gives you the capacity to get past any excuse to change any and every part of your life in an instant.