I'm very influenced by landscapes, not so much the way places look as the way the names sound. In this country we've got so many cultures, and the place names - the Spanish names and the Indian names, which are so incredibly musical.

I didn't have any money. I had a sense of terrible loss. But what I also had was a fire in my belly. I wasn't going to go back to waiting tables. I felt I had to be better at fronting a band.

As citizens we have to be more thoughtful and more educated and more informed. I turn on the TV and I see these grown people screaming at each other, and I think, well, if we don't get our civility back, we're in trouble.

You really do learn every day with every dog; they are all so unique and different. But if you're patient and you understand where they're coming from, and if you are consistent, they will be fine. They teach you to give your full attention.

China's one-child policy punishes families for having 'out-of-plan' children, resulting in sex-selective abortion and tens of millions of 'missing girls' as well as forced abortion and sterilization campaigns.

My whole family is involved in the arts - my sister is a professional Bharatnatyam dancer, and my dad helps me out on the music business end.

Part of the joy and pleasure of English is its boundless creativity: I can describe a new machine as bicyclish, I can say that I'm vitamining myself to stave off a cold, I can complain that someone is the smilingest person I've ever seen, and I can decide, out of the blue, that 'fetch' is now the word I want to use to mean 'cool.'

There's a lot of great things to see here in the United States. Those times spent together with maps and old cups from the diner you went to, those are really important as a family.