We humans are an extremely important manifestation of the replication bomb because it is through us - through our brains our symbolic culture and our technology - that the explosion may proceed to the next stage and reverberate through deep space.

Adele Adkins' retro-soul debut '19' was striking less for her songs than for that voice: a voluptuous slightly parched alto that swooped and fluttered like a Dusty Springfield student trying to upstage her teacher or at least update the rules.

IT is mere coincidence that Cooper was born in the year which produced The Power of Sympathy and that when he died Uncle Tom's Cabin was passing through its serial stage and yet the limits of his life mark almost exactly the first great period of American fiction.

In externals we advance with lightening express speed in modes of thought and sympathy we lumber on in stage-coach fashion.

I put £150 000 into the stage production of Grease and have got back £1.5 million so far. It has been a fantastic success.

I feel like a hostage to fortune. Not that I am complaining. I wanted to play the role. But in truth I didn't think the show would be such a success. OK I thought it would fail. Not because it was bad. I was confident it was good but plenty of good things just sort of wither on the vine.

Your success story is a bigger story than whatever you're trying to say on stage. Success makes life easier. It doesn't make living easier.

Real success is not on the stage but off the stage as a human being and how you get along with your fellow man.

Death used to announce itself in the thick of life but now people drag on so long it sometimes seems that we are reaching the stage when we may have to announce ourselves to death. It is as though one needs a special strength to die and not a final weakness.

My strength as an actor is in the theater - I know that about myself. Some actors get onstage and vanish but I'm much better there than I am on screen.

We need to reach that happy stage of our development when differences and diversity are not seen as sources of division and distrust but of strength and inspiration.

I used to play football for Real Madrid and to be on stage for two hours I can tell you it takes the same amount of strength.

I remember when I was growing up I always wore glasses and so if I was on-stage or just being able to move around playing sports I was never really able to because I had glasses holding me back. Wearing contacts has just been very helpful.

Art is the close scrutiny of reality and therefore I put on the stage only those things that I know happen in our society.

Yes all fundamentalists feel that in a secular society God has been relegated to the margin to the periphery and they are all in different ways seeking to drag him out of that peripheral position back to center stage.

You just let your lower self go and then it takes on all these aspects of the society - the city with horns blowing the people yelling things at each other and the all-in-all violence and chaos of the city. Put that on stage with music and that's what this is.

I think ultimately I make people happy: Whether I'm doing the stage show giving somebody a makeover or designing clothing the end goal is to make people smile.