At one point I had dreams of being in the school band, but I didn't play an instrument that qualified me, and that was a problem. I always had fantasies to be part of that, but I did take my piano lessons quite seriously.

At school there were some programs in music. I did take piano lessons, and we had a piano at home. I got very interested in that.

One association with the arts that I vividly remember was a magazine called Normal Instructor, a teachers' magazine, that Miss George would hold up with illustrations of great artworks like [Vincent] van Gogh and Rembrandt [van Rijn].

Even today, the bigger the city, the better. That's why I live in New York.

We've got a nation of people who have one eye looking out for the next speed camera, another looking for a speed limit sign and another looking at the speedometer - which is a bit of a shame, when you only have two eyes.

People, even children, aren't really afraid of change. They're afraid of not being prepared for change.

At one point I had dreams of being in the school band, but I didn't play an instrument that qualified me, and that was a problem. I always had fantasies to be part of that, but I did take my piano lessons quite seriously.