I fear that our true motivation is about oil and our own flailing economy; about the failure to destroy Al Qaeda and about revenge.

I think we have to be active in teaching our children, and teaching each other. We have to be active about kindness and about peace. I've always fantasized that it would be great if there was a Department of Peace. We have a military, but what if there was a department devoted entirely and truthfully to finding peaceful resolutions?

I'm partly obsessed by aging gracefully.

When I was a kid growing up in New York, I was pretty unaware of racism. I think when we're young - before we lose our innocence - we're sort of unaware of the more flawed qualities of each other.

South Africa gives me a perspective of what's real and what's not real. So I go back to South Africa to both lose myself and gain awareness of myself. Every time I go back, it doesn't take long for me to get caught into a very different thing. A very different sense of myself.

You and me have a better time than most can dream of, better than the best.

I'm from a very politically and socially conscious family. My mother always made a point of making us look at what was going on around us and take stock of our part in it.