Quality in a classical Greek sense is how to live with grace and intelligence with bravery and mercy.

Classical plays require more imagination and more general training to be able to do. That's why I like playing Shakespeare better than anything else.

The great thing about university is that they incline you to get up and do it from the Classics to modern plays to the humor that Monty Pythons made popular.

Oh stuff the critics. I don't care. Too many people are snooty about classical. Look I wasn't brought up in a home where we listened to classical music. It was a singing teacher that thought it would be best for my voice. Then I moved into crossover. And if that makes the music accessible to more people then great.

If history philosophy and so on vanish from academic life what they leave in their wake may be a technical training facility or corporate research institute. But it will not be a university in the classical sense of the term and it would be deceptive to call it one.

I would like to be as fit as I've always been. I've been blessed with good health I've been blessed with stamina. Particularly for those great classical roles you need an Olympian stamina. I fortunately have that.

All too often government's response to social breakdown has been a classic case of 'patching' - a case of handing money out containing problems and limiting the damage but in doing so supporting - even reinforcing - dysfunctional behaviour.

I had a really good childhood up until I was nine then a classic case of divorce really affected me.

There's a wealth of literature out there which hopefully will be you know exploded in the future and I personally find it very rewarding to be involved with classic storytelling and sort of legendary characters.

I had the classic 40 meltdown. I did. It's embarrassing. It was pretty funny. But then I recovered. To me it was like a second adolescence. Hormonally my body was changing my mind was changing and so my relationship to myself and the world around me came to this assault of finiteness.

Jazz stands for freedom. It's supposed to be the voice of freedom: Get out there and improvise and take chances and don't be a perfectionist - leave that to the classical musicians.

I had spent many years pursuing excellence because that is what classical music is all about... Now it was dedicated to freedom and that was far more important.

America is a such a melting pot I'm not sure if roast chicken is the classic comfort food for everybody.

This June I'll travel once again to the Food and Wine Magazine Classic in Aspen Colorado. For many years my dear friend Julia Child and I have teamed up to teach classes together at the event for the past seven years my daughter Claudine has been my cooking partner on stage.

You have to know the classics if you want to cook modern food.

I love inventive food but I want the classic dishes to taste like how I remember them. I get a little bummed out when there is too much fancy stuff going on and it doesn't resemble the original dish at all.

I don't buy into any of that hogwash. They put that out to sell tickets. It's just a classic horror movie with the Greek drama formula of good versus evil and lots of fear.