But it's funny that now I'm in such a happy situation, I look more objectively at my own past and see what others have seen for a long time and I'm just so glad I've been able to get to this point.

Yes, of course that's true but you know, the irony of all that is that before the accident, I'd pretty much lost interest in playing drums.

Before my accident I was a little too... selfish and self-absorbed and for me, to now be at the place where I can kinda give back and inspire people. I'm blessed. I'm really blessed.

I really don't feel any strong allegiance to any country.

America feels like home as much as it does here. Although it's a strange situation as I feel almost like I'm in no-man's land some of the time, because although I'm a resident, I still can't vote so I don't really have a say in what goes on where I live.

Thinking about what songs are coming next instead of just relaxing, breathing and playing from my heart. Sometimes it can get to be almost like the enemy.

We're probably doing better business than we thought we would do especially considering the disappointing way the record company has handled the album.

And more importantly, I wouldn't be the person I am today, I wouldn't be where I am now and I may not even have been here if it wasn't for the accident.

I have never been one for the over-the-top.

I prefer the rather old and battered, things with character, to the brand new.

I think at that time I obviously wasn't aware of what I really needed. But conversely, my wanting to prove something to everyone was beneficial 'cause if I hadn't done it then, maybe I'd never have done it.

At the end of the day, they're happy if you do the obvious songs towards the end of the set and you've got to try and make yourself happy by doing certain songs at the front end of the set.

Just the same way I'd say a prayer before going onstage, taking that even further and using the drum to inspire people. And using that as a vehicle for the intention.

Chasing the sensation. Whether it was drugs or sex or whatever. Those things had become my main focus in life.

But it's funny that now I'm in such a happy situation, I look more objectively at my own past and see what others have seen for a long time and I'm just so glad I've been able to get to this point.

Some people say that practice makes perfect but I just feel that the repetition works against me and I start thinking too far ahead during a show.

If we had loads of money as a family, things would be different and they'd come to visit more and I'd get to spend more time here. But I'm laying down roots in America so when I'm there, just being at home, it's harder to break away from that.

I wanted to be as far away from everybody as I could be. I found it difficult to be close to anybody, not just the guys in the band.

But I think that the most important thing was to really stop drinking.

My situation should have been a lot worse. By rights I shouldn't have survived the crash.

But the irony is that because the band isn't the focus any more, it allows me the chance to enjoy being a member of Def Leppard much more.

I think all of those things, but certainly the booze really brought out the really unreasonable side of me, and I just didn't want to revisit that place again.

I was happy in Dublin because it is very cosmopolitan.

I think my perception of my own life is different and the fact that Lauren and myself are together. I've never felt this free or happy and so that permeates onto my onstage persona and to my working environment.

But unfortunately, in my unrelenting drive to get back on that drum stool, the major casualty in all of it was that I really forgot about me.

'Cause I felt I didn't have anything else to prove as a musician... and boy was I wrong about that one.

It's funny, 'cause it seems like just yesterday that I was the youngest player just starting out. But now there are young players all over the league, and they'll ask me questions about playing overseas or finding an agent.

When Frank the Pug is singing I Will Survive, the only reason it's funny is that Will is in that shot trying not to get angry. A shot of a dog singing I Will Survive on its own will not get a laugh.

I sometimes lie awake at night trying to think of something funny that Richard Nixon said.

Robert Altman's Nashville is my all-time favorite film because it covers all the bases - it's original, moving, and has something to say, but also funny and incredibly entertaining.

You amaze me. You're 229 years old and that's what you think is funny.

You have to understand the tone of the movie, because if it's supposed to be funny, it can be funny violent like the Home Alone stuff, but you have to really understand the tone of what you're doing and make the action work for that and for the character.

It is funny that men who are supposed to be scientific cannot get themselves to realise the basic principle of physics, that action and reaction are equal and opposite, that when you persecute people you always rouse them to be strong and stronger.

Half of the great comedians I've had in my shows and that I paid a lot of money to and who made my customers shriek were not only not funny to me, but I couldn't understand why they were funny to anybody.

There's a constant flow of child actors. It's kind of funny to watch the new crew come through. I think, You poor little things. You're going to have to struggle for a long time.

For sheer sexiness, a man must be beautiful. Funny. yes. Clever, no.

I don't think there has been any increase in sophistication in the audience. When people are aware of a concept that's easy to understand, and there's an actor who will attract them to the theater and it's a movie that's funny three-quarters of the time, it will be successful.

Books are funny little portable pieces of thought.

I had an idea of what I thought was funny. It's kind of based on how I am.

So while it is true that I find really dark stuff funny sometimes, it's also true that as a writer of books I want to have the whole range of human emotions.

When we criticize in Iran the actions of the government, the fundamentalists say that we and the Bush Administration are in the same camp. The funny thing is that human rights activists and Mr. Bush can never be situated in the same group.

So to me, Texas Hold 'em puts me to sleep. At least when you play stud, you can be funny as you deal. Somebody some day is going to come up with a Stud show that's going to work.

Great, big, serious novels always get awards. If it's a battle between a great, big, serious novel and a funny novel, the funny novel is doomed.

Baldwin is sort of getting to be a bit funny. I don't know what happened, but a few years ago they suddenly went bankrupt and Gibson bought the whole outfit. Since then they haven't seemed to be doing an awfully good job of providing pianos.

It's funny how sometimes how the public some people think I was born like this. That I maybe I sleep and I do big muscle, but its a lot of work to look like this and to be in this kind of condition.

I think back to some of the things Harry said and some of the things I said trying to be funny. If I said them now, it would be on the front page of every newspaper in the country.

Shirley MacLaine said, You're so funny, then gave me a hug. Everything went white. I couldn't hear, I couldn't see. I thought I was going to pass out.

I think movies glamorize violence, in the sense that they make it in a way that it's either cool or funny.

I remember interviewing someone I actually felt bad for, and therefore didn't want to take an ironic stance against him. It actually turned out to be a really funny piece.