I do think culture is an argument, and that was part of the way I was brought up. People at a social occasion in Ireland will start shouting and arguing. When the Yeats family lived in Bedford Park, they had to go round to the neighbours to say, 'You might think we are fighting, but this is the way we talk to each other.'

Ulysses' is the greatest anti-racist text in the English language, and it challenges right from the beginning the vicious racism which lies near the foundations of the Irish Free State and of the Irish republic.

It's ironic that early on in the war with Afghanistan, the Americans and the British were saying, 'We recognise there must be a Palestinian state,' then they rapidly forgot about it. I think history will show that that kind of amnesia will come back to haunt you.

Is the biographer an artist who can and should exist on equal terms with the dramatist, fiction writer and poet? The short and robust answer is, 'Certainly not.'

My career progressed slowly. Real slow at a time. The irony of it was I had the best part of my career between when I was 45 and 49 years old. That's when most people are in their twilight, waiting to get to the Champions Tour. And that's when I made most of my hay.

L.A. is my office. I come here for work and work only.

Fourth, to assure every entrepreneur and every job creator that their investments in America will not vanish as have those in Greece, we will cut the deficit and put America on track to a balanced budget.

If acting doesn't work out, I plan to do food photography and just eat my way through the entire world. I'm a big foodie, and if I could make some career out of it, that would be fantastic.