We asserted ourselves as a music community and showed legislators that music is positive. Especially if you've sold 300 million records worldwide and pay taxes.

But I think there was a sense amongst the House Republicans especially that we didn't just want to be opposed to Bill Clinton that we wanted to tell the country what we were for and to brand ourselves in a more positive manner.

Broadway is such a diverse community. Everybody knows how I believe and everyone believes and it's not a big deal. But in Hollywood if you talk about politics - especially if you're a Republican - or spirituality it's just not something people want to hear about.

I think especially in a world where you have so little say about what goes on in your life or in the politics of the world around you it is wonderful to go into that studio and tell yourself what to do.

Politics is pop. Our job as comedians - especially me as a late-night talk show which is a broader audience - is to amplify what we think America is thinking.

There's a tradition in British intellectual life of mocking any non-political force that gets involved in politics especially within the sphere of the arts and the theatre.

Flipping the dial through available radio stations there will blare out to any listener an array of broadcasts 24/7 propagating Religious Right politics along with what they deem to be 'old-time gospel preaching.' This is especially true of what comes over the airwaves in Bible Belt southern states.

The trouble with Nixon is that he's a serious politics junkie. He's totally hooked and like any other junkie he's a bummer to have around especially as President.

I have had much to learn from Sweden's poetry and more especially from her lyrics of the last generation.

There is a wonderful Hungarian literature especially in lyric poetry.