When I was younger I was terrified to express anger because it would often kick-start a horrible reaction in the men in my life. So I bit my tongue. I was left to painstakingly deal with the aftermath of my avoidance later in life in therapy or through the lyrics of my songs.

The world in general doesn't know what to make of originality it is startled out of its comfortable habits of thought and its first reaction is one of anger.

Those who remember Washington's cold war culture in the 1980s will recall the shocked reactions to Reagan's intervention. People interested in foreign policy were astonished when in 1985 he met alone at Geneva - alone not a single strategic thinker at his elbow! - with the Soviet Communist master Gorbachev.

It is a great mystery that though the human heart longs for Truth in which alone it finds liberation and delight the first reaction of human beings to Truth is one of hostility and fear!

Our age knows nothing but reaction and leaps from one extreme to another.

An artist must be a reactionary. He has to stand out against the tenor of the age and not go flopping along.