This CD became something of a personal journey for me. The tone of the whole CD is uplifting and inspirational. It's an upper. We have enough downers in the world.

To me the Seventies were very inspirational and very influential... With my whole persona as Snoop Dogg as a person as a rapper. I just love the Seventies style the way all the players dressed nice you know kept their hair looking good drove sharp cars and they talked real slick.

So much of what we do as artists is a combination of personal experience and imagination and how that all creeps into your work is not so linear.

I suppose I'm proudest of my novels for what's imagined in them. I think the world of my imagination is a richer and more interesting place than my personal biography.

I don't want to discredit people's individuality but I think people are pretty much the same. People are very similar. If you have a good enough imagination then you can feel things that you personally have never done before. That's acting.

Growing up I didn't have a lot of toys and personal entertainment depended on individual ingenuity and imagination - think up a story and go live it for an afternoon.

Personally I would sooner have written Alice in Wonderland than the whole Encyclopedia Britannica.

Imagine for yourself a character a model personality whose example you determine to follow in private as well as in public.

I was a precocious only child and then I went through a fat awkward stage for several years so I learned to fall back on my humor and personality when I was growing up. It's how you survive so I think it was more of a natural progression for me developing into comedy.

While many of us never knew Ronald Reagan personally we felt close to him because we shared his lighthearted sense of humor admired his uncommon virtue and were moved by his remarkable wisdom.

Throw in the humor throw in that personality try things you wouldn't normally try.

I always felt different as a kid and the Kinks were like 'Yeah we're the Kinks.' Celebrate your difference don't be afraid of your sense of humor or your personality or who you are. It emboldened me.

We're starting to push the envelope in terms of the expectations and you can also have your own style personality and sense of humor because now we're allowed to.

There are different kinds of humor some is sarcastic some introspective. Introspective fit my personality better.

When you're young you want to make every kind of film: musicals Westerns horror. Slowly you begin to hear your own voice. I hope people receive what I do as small personal films that are somewhat contrarian about their main characters.

I had a huge advantage when I started 50 years ago - my job was secure. I didn't have to promote myself. These days there's far more pressure to make a mark so the temptation is to make adventure television or personality shows. I hope the more didactic approach won't be lost.

Every woman I've had a relationship with has found this maddening the fact that I will talk about anything on the stage and reveal all this stuff and yet when I'm at home I clam up and won't discuss anything intimate or personal.