Professional societies are sooner or later fractured by the ego of their leaders. Everyone wants to be president, chairman, CEO; no one wants to be a mere follower.

I envy those Hindus and Buddhists who have in their religion philosophy and ancestor worship which build in the believer a continuity with the past, and that most important ingredient in the building of a nation - memory.

My reading of philosophy and history is desultory; I know so much and yet so little.

What is needed in the theater, in fact for all our art forms, is a vibrant critical tradition.

Causes brings over 140 million people together to form the world's largest giving community. The belief that everyone has something to give is at the core of what we do; people just need a little inspiration, and to know that whoever they are, there is something meaningful they can do.

That's the motivation of an artist - to seek attention of some kind.

The growth of our understanding of the world through science weakens some of the motivation which makes people believers. But that's not the same thing as saying they're incompatible. It's just that I think some of the traditional reasons for belief, going back thousands of years, are rather undermined.

It's not until I hear songs that I've done, that I realize how much of an inspiration music from the '60s and '70s has been.