Many who have had an opportunity of knowing any more about mathematics confuse it with arithmetic and consider it an arid science. In reality however it is a science which requires a great amount of imagination.

The worlds I paint leave a lot to engage the imagination by hinting at what lies beyond the four edges of the painting. I think getting beyond the four edges of an opportunity or challenge is one of the basic skills you need in business.

Writing gives me the opportunity to explore ideas play with language solve problems use my imagination and draw on my own childhood.

We need to have a pro-growth policy put in place that offers people hope and offers the opportunity for businesses to expand and for them to have confidence in what the world is going to look like for the next two or three or four years with respect to economic policy.

For me Barack Obama's election was a milestone of the most extraordinary kind. On the day he was elected I felt such hope in my heart. I thought we were seeing the beginning of a new era of equal opportunity across race and gender such as America had never known before.

I doubt I'll be singing forever because at some point people aren't going to want to hear my music and I hope that I'll still get the opportunity to write songs.

Few tragedies can be more extensive than the stunting of life few injustices deeper than the denial of an opportunity to strive or even to hope by a limit imposed from without but falsely identified as lying within.

Conservatism is not about leaving people behind. Conservatism is about empowering people to catch up to give them the tools at their disposable that make it possible for them to access all the hope all the promise all the opportunity that America offers. And our programs to help them should reflect that.

Here at home when Americans were standing in long lines to give blood after the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon we squandered an obvious opportunity to make service a noble cause again and rekindle an American spirit of community.

To have the opportunity to complete the slam at the Open at St Andrews the home of golf is something I will never ever forget.