I'm as skeptical as anyone would be about celebrities and causes - and I will dare to say to you that I don't think of myself as a celebrity per se.

I have learned to interface - what I think would be the contemporary term - with various different lexicons, and people speak very different languages. I've learned to speak in a lot of tongues, and I can live with the bellicose language of some fervent, fire-breathing Christians, sure.

There is a root arrogance in any writer; a hugely arrogant assumption that anyone is going to listen to them.

It's annoying, but justice and equality are mates. Aren't they? Justice always wants to hang out with equality. And equality is a real pain.

To be one, to be united is a great thing. But to respect the right to be different is maybe even greater.

I'm never nervous when I go to meet heads of state. I feel they should be nervous, because they are the ones who'll be held accountable for the lives their decisions will impact the most.

What I like about pop music, and why I'm still attracted to it, is that in the end it becomes our folk music.