Read, read, read. Read good books. You will strengthen your understanding of story. Your vocabulary will be the richer for it.

There are constant cycles in history. There is loss, but it is always followed by regeneration. The tales of our elders who remember such cycles are very important to us now.

I began telling stories as a volunteer in my daughters' school. But I grew up hearing stories from Cuban and Southern storytellers, and I learned a great deal by just being quiet and listening.

If you tell stories you love, you will never tell them with indifference - take it to the bank.

I have very talented art directors in my agency who start out telling me, 'Well, this is what the picture is... ' I ask, 'Well, what's the headline?' and they say, 'We haven't done that yet, but it looks this way.' But I'm still writing copy, almost every day.

We'd love it if everybody had a Kickstarter project. I believe that everyone has some kind of creative project that they think about - whether it's something small they'd like to do over a weekend with friends, or it's the film they've always wanted to make, whatever.

It's quite liberating to get to a certain age, 'cos you're not chasing number one hits or trying to be an international superstar. I've done all that. I'm not out to prove much more to anyone but myself really, to be an artist and see if there is a new undiscovered music out there for me to make.

I love what I do. I made my first record in '57. I don't think I'll ever get tired of making records and writing songs and singing and being in the music business.