I started growing up in a hurry and taking a lot of the philosophy I'd heard from church as a kid a lot more seriously - especially the Ten Commandments - and wondering how 'Thou shalt not kill' could be so absolutely ignored. It took me until I was in my 40s to write what I was thinking as a young soldier.

Concord, California was a great place to grow up.

When you start out with goals - mine were to play polytonally and polyrhythmically - you never exhaust that. I started doing that in the 1940s. It's still a challenge to discover what can be done with just those two elements.

Many people don't understand how disciplined you have to be to play jazz... And that is really the idea of democracy - freedom within the Constitution or discipline. You don't just get out there and do anything you want.

But when I entered politics, I found that this was the space that could be used for making lives of people better.

The '90s were extremely diverse, almost like a laboratory of the new century. There was much experimenting around, in politics, economics, gender and family structures, and also in fashion. There was a cloud of possibilities which kept us all dizzy.

A government for the people must depend for its success on the intelligence, the morality, the justice, and the interest of the people themselves.

When healthcare is at its best, hospitals are four-star hotels, and nurses, personal butlers at the ready - at least, that's how many hospitals seem to interpret a government mandate.