Acting is not a mystery. There's nothing that I know that other actors don't know. We all act we're all actors we all know the same thing. The only thing that separates us is experience.

At our best it's a good experience but we do 22 episodes a year so there are some clunkers.

The most important training though is to experience life as a writer questioning everything inventing multiple explanations for everything. If you do that all the other things will come if you don't there's no hope for you.

There are some things you only learn through experience.

Marimba is much more of a wood-type experience and there is no real possibility of getting a dry sound and getting that contrast in the same way that you can in a vibraphone.

Once you're in a particular country and you're surrounded by musicians who are so adept at traditional music you suddenly realize how much there is to explore and digest and learn and experience.

There are a lot of things that make up a performance a lot of technical things. It isn't always just about pulling it up from the darkest recesses of your mind or your heart. It's your experience and your observation.

I had the closest thing I have ever had to an out-of-body experience lying in bed one morning. I turned on the 'Today' programme and item four on the news was: 'The shadow chancellor has ruled himself out of the leadership.' I lay there thinking that's interesting then I realised it was me.

I know from my own personal experience. I was bullied in middle school and high school and went through my fair share of hard times thereafter. Also one of my really good friends committed suicide when I was in high school.

There are a lot of impractical things about owning a Porsche. But they're all offset by the driving experience. It really is unique. Lamborghinis and Ferraris come close. And they are more powerful but they don't handle like a Porsche.

I live with one foot in the sand and one in the snow. There's European egocentricity and the African opposite. I normally say that my African experience has made me a better European.

There is no winning or losing but rather the value is in the experience of imagining yourself as a character in whatever genre you're involved in whether it's a fantasy game the Wild West secret agenst or whatever else. You get to sort of vicariously experience those things.

If there's any object in human experience that's a precedent for what a computer should be like it's a musical instrument: a device where you can explore a huge range of possibilities through an interface that connects your mind and your body allowing you to be emotionally authentic and expressive.

It was a very bizarre experience for me to get the songs together go in there and try to deliver them as I would perhaps in a live setting. But I realized that I couldn't take on that coffeehouse style that I came from and go in there and burn it up.

The greatest way for people to experience a comedy is to go in not knowing anything about it. But because of marketing it's impossible. Marketing meaning that in order to get people to come you can't just go 'Hey there's a great movie - we're not going to show you anything from it but trust us!'

Films that are entertainments give simple answers but I think that's ultimately more cynical as it denies the viewer room to think. If there are more answers at the end then surely it is a richer experience.

People only talk about what a joyous experience it is but there is terror: Your life as you know it is over. It's over the day that child is born. It's over and something completely new starts.