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

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.

Just a few short years ago in the year 2000, the last full fiscal year of the Clinton administration, this country was running a surplus of $236 billion.

Heavenly Father has given a simple pattern for us to receive the Holy Ghost not once but continually in the tumult of our daily lives. The pattern is repeated in the sacramental prayer: We promise that we will always remember the Savior. We promise to take His name upon us. We promise to keep His commandments.

That is what the title of artist means: one who perceives more than his fellows, and who records more than he has seen.

Alone I'm nothing.

If you know you can do better… then do better.

The things that have taken place over my career have been unbelievable. I have a lot of great moments to cherish.

By preventing dangerous asteroid strikes, we can save millions of people, or even our entire species. And, as human beings, we can take responsibility for preserving this amazing evolutionary experiment of which we and all life on Earth are a part.

For an event that was wholly created in the poisonous psychological warfare kitchens of the Second World War, run by the ministries of propaganda in many countries, not just by the British or the Americans, but also the Russians and undoubtedly the world Jewish organizations.

The poet's other readers are the ancient poets, who look upon the freshly written pages from an incorruptible distance. Their poetic forms are permanent, and it is difficult to create new forms which can approach them.

Study until twenty-five, investigation until forty, profession until sixty, at which age I would have him retired on a double allowance.

Undeserved praise causes more pangs of conscience later than undeserved blame, but probably only for this reason, that our power of judgment are more completely exposed by being over praised than by being unjustly underestimated.

The strongest of all psychic forces in the world is unsatisfied desire.

There's no male Oprah.

The real literary editors have mostly been fired. Those that remain are all 'bottom line' editors; everything depends on the money.

The race is your face. Obviously, I come from a mixed background. Who I am and how I look and being black.

Tomorrow is always fresh with no mistakes in it yet.

Photography is a hobby born out of my time in undergrad at USC. It is more of a pleasurable hobby, a stress reliever. I don't consider it a professional endeavor like acting or directing.

I remember when I got to 16, my mum was like, 'No, now you've got to go and get a proper job. We've indulged you long enough.' I don't think they ever thought I was going to be successful in entertainment at all.

Wonders will never cease.

Profits are one of the most important goals of any successful business, and investors are one of the most important constituencies of public businesses.

Depend on no man, on no friend but him who can depend on himself. He only who acts conscientiously toward himself, will act so toward others.

It's great to have a place of my own, but I still see my family often, as we are very close.

I'm so into momminess.