Everyone thinks of the roaring twenties and associates it with decadence and flappers, female sexual liberation, the freedom of women to express themselves, the beginning of feminism. But it was also a time of huge, huge change.

I think if you stop learning, there's not much point, and so I always hope to be challenged. That's the beauty of this job.

Pixar make kids' movies, but there are jokes in there for adults, and it never gets too sentimental.

I had that extroverted energy, and I always involved myself in quite adult conversations. My mum never hid us from that. There was never a kids' table; we were never treated as kids, per se, because I don't think she believes in that.

I love writing songs. I love doing my radio show and talking to the fans and listening to what they have to say, but there's a certain responsibility that comes along with being given the gift of music. I take that seriously, but at the same time I try to use it to do something that makes a difference in a positive way.

When you look at that period when Warhol and the Velvets and the Stones were doing things, it was this intersection of art and music. And then it went away.

I discovered that my imagination came alive when I moved away from the immediate world around me.

A supreme pragmatist, Kissinger was never interested in the art of the impossible - and nor, as a biographer, am I. That is why, having initially been invited to write his entire official biography, I eventually decided to devote myself to writing just one year in his life: 1973.