I have a very strange melodic gift: melodies come to me effortlessly.

I would listen to something on the radio and try to tap out the melody, then the harmonies.

I have a very strange melodic gift: melodies come to me effortlessly.

My father had left behind an old piano. My sister was already going to school, my mother was out working, and I stayed at home alone with my adorable grandmother who understood nothing I said. It was so boring that I stayed at the piano all day long, and that saved my life.

Here is how I work: when I think that a film needs to have a principal theme, I search for a melody.

So I write melodies - thirty, forty, fifty - then I cast them off until I have just two or three. If only one is needed, I go see the director and ask him to decide.

To play piano is a significant part of my life, my existence. It fulfills a very physical & spiritual need for me.

I have those songs as well. It depends on what I'm going through in my life but I'm a huge fan of Bjork. Sometimes I get so emotional because she's so amazing.

I love being on the road, I love playing.

A significant U.S. troop presence in Afghanistan has been continuous since October 2001, and President Obama's short-lived 'surge' in 2009 was a continuation of his predecessor's buildup there.

I think that sometimes in theater, I don't prepare much beyond going to the rehearsals.

My favorite movie is 'Closer' and 'Love Story.'

The San Gabriel monument expands our natural heritage, but there is more in need of safeguarding - extraordinary places like Utah's Greater Canyonlands.

I've anchored my share of live coverage over the years, including car chases. At MSNBC, I often prayed the 'delay switch' would actually work as promised. And, I frequently wondered what I would do or say if a violent and graphic incident accidentally aired on my broadcast.

I have a big passion about civil rights for everyone - whoever is being downtrodden at the moment, it doesn't matter: racial discrimination or sexual orientation or gender. Whatever it is, I'm there. I think I was a born civil rights activist. I can't stand the smashing of a community. It's not fair and it's not right.

I find that when I'm struggling to think of how a six-year-old would feel about something, I just have to go right down to the common denominator, find the simplest way that you can look at an object or a problem, and not muck it up with all of the stuff that adults do and over-analyze.

The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.

My school was six miles away from where I lived on the farm. I had to walk and run, there and back every day, through gorges and over rivers. If I was late, there was a very big stick waiting for me.

I mean, I guess I realized subconsciously that this is what I should be doing before I realized it, consciously. Verbally, I don't think I had committed to it, even though I was driving everywhere, every night, just trying to get on stage.

Yes, it’s a virtue to grow and improve, but it’s important to remember that being single does not mean you’re flawed and in need of fixing. Your relationship or lack thereof has little to do with your worth.

I only buy a computer when it's two years old, after the glitches have been worked out.

The diseases which destroy a man are no less natural than the instincts which preserve him.

When you're dealing with a big amount of money, you should have your own accountant and your own lawyer.

Abundance doesn't follow giving until giving becomes its own reward.

The sweetest of all sounds is that of the voice of the woman we love.

I like to protect children. I mean, there's nothing wrong with having adult programming for mature adults that can selectively decide what they want to watch and what they don't want to watch.

A mother is the portal by which you enter the world.

A couple of weeks before the 1992 Houston Open, I was probably as low as I could get confidence-wise. I didn't think I was going to go any further, and then, out of nowhere, I won that week. That kind of got me going.

I've always hated the way I looked, and I've never complained about my brains.

A good therapist uses their whole being to engage fully with the whole being of the person coming for help.

When I make a book, I make it for the child and not for the parent - no jokes in it for the parents!