Many fantasy novels - 'Lord of the Rings', for instance, or 'Lavondyss' by Robert Holdstock - are beautifully written. Geoff Ryman's 'The Child Garden' is exquisite and utterly beguiling. Mervyn Peake's 'Gormenghast' trilogy is an astonishing piece of multi-faceted storytelling. So quality of writing does not condemn the genre.

This is the real magic of fantasy fiction: it can feed souls and change lives.

Our modern world, though infinitely more complex than that of ancient Greece, is also far more superficial. Where the Greeks offered simple psychological training, we live in an age of style and spin in which perceptions of good and evil slither and shift with the political view of the moment.

Dallas is an extraordinary place in it's own right. The first thing about Dallas that you can't get away from, particularly when I arrived, you've got no idea of the heat in this place. It's over 100 degrees, and with that the humidity is ridiculous. I mean, people don't live here, armadillos live here.

I went from playing for nobody and having awkward experiences at award shows to now being all over the place playing sold-out shows for people who know all of the words.

It's the hardest thing on earth to like yourself, and then when you do, it's a catastrophe. I mean, the people I know who like themselves - I don't want to see them!

As a lawyer, I can assure you that a lot of document drafting is repetitive, involving cutting and pasting from templates. But the best lawyers bring a unique perspective to the process and anticipate clients' problems.