Certain experiences you never forget, no matter how old you become.

In 1986, when I was 21, I lived in Tokyo for four months, boarding with a Japanese family and working for an American company.

For a couple of years at the end of the 1970s, Dustin Hoffman was a fixture in our family. My father was his lawyer and friend.

The difference between great actors and the rest of us isn't simply that they know how to make more out of less, but that, like lions at the watering hole, they will always take more than their share from the pool of available resources - extra air from the room, added knowledge from our faces.

I always wanted to be a designer and always felt surprised as a child when my sister used to deliberate about whether to be a nurse or a teacher.

The fact I have an education forms my lyrical style, I'm sure. I studied the social sciences, history, stuff like that. I have an interest in politics, which maybe works its way into the songs in small, subtle ways.

So long as classical education and classical prejudices prevailed, educated Englishmen inevitably saw ancient Britain as an alien land.

The Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center serves as a poignant reminder of our past and a trusted source of education for schoolchildren, community members, and visitors from across the country.