I'd gone from being this art student messing about with music to this girl with a record deal magazine front covers and all this hype. In many ways it was everything I ever wanted but when it happened all I felt was total paralysing fear.
Love is the total absence of fear. Love asks no questions. Its natural state is one of extension and expansion not comparison and measurement.
The Cuban people still live in constant fear of a brutal totalitarian regime that has demonstrated time and again its utter disregard for basic human dignity. The fight for a free Cuba has gone on for far too long.
I totally related to Cole Porter's magnetic pull to any piano that was in the room which he was famous for doing as was Gershwin. You couldn't drag them away from a piano.
And to me fame is not a positive thing. The idea of being famous is a lot better than the reality. It's fantastic when you go to premieres and people cheer you but it's not real. And it's totally not my approach to get my name on a club door just because I can.
The hardest thing about being famous is that people are always nice to you. You're in a conversation and everybody's agreeing with what you're saying - even if you say something totally crazy. You need people who can tell you what you don't want to hear.
When I do get free time I spend a lot of it at home with my family and my close friends and I think that's what keeps me happy healthy grounded and totally in check.
If you want to see mankind fully look at a family. Within the family minds become organically one and for this reason the family is total poetry.
It would make life much easier if I could have total faith and not question everything all the time but I can't do it and I won't do it.
In times when religious or political faith or hope predominates the writer functions totally in unison with society and expresses society's feelings beliefs and hopes in perfect harmony.
There is a split between Muslims who want to practice their faith in peace and tolerance with other religions and other people and these extreme radical fundamentalists who have shown a total lack of tolerance for people with different views starting with people who they don't think are good Muslims and going on to include Christians and Jews.
When you put your total faith in God no matter what happens to a person who's a true believer if you die you know you're going to heaven to be with God.
Writers now are putting total faith in designers at Apple and Amazon. It's almost like a race-car driver having no input into how cars are designed.
I don't think that the total creation took place in six days as we now measure time. If we can confirm say the Big Bang theory that doesn't at all cause me to question my faith that God created the Big Bang.
With improvisation I just do it. It might be a total failure but then you just throw the dice again.
Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success.
The banking collapse was caused more than anything by bad government policy and the total failure of bad regulation rather than by greed.