When a nation is over-reliant on one or two commodities like oil or precious minerals, corrupt government ministers and their dodgy associates hoard profits and taxes instead of properly allocating them to schools and hospitals.

The idea that there is one kind of African is of course ridiculous. Sometimes African entrepreneurs want to kill you because you are saying public health is the priority, not roads. Of course they are right to press for that issue, but so are we right, I believe, to argue for example that millions of children could and should be vaccinated.

Music fills in for words a lot of the time when people don't know what to say, and I think music can be more eloquent than words.

The most powerful idea that's entered the world in the last few thousand years - the idea of grace - is the reason I would like to be a Christian.

Convictions, in the end, they can be dangerous, but a world without them is just kind of an awful kind of gray, amorphous mass.

The right to be irresponsible and stupid is something I hold very dear. And luckily it is something I do well.

The strangest thing has happened. I really missed my dog. That's never happened to me before. You know, on a long tour you do hear people saying they miss their pets. I never have. But last night I started really missing my dog. It's very odd, 'cause I don't have a dog.