Poetry is that art which selects and arranges the symbols of thought in such a manner as to excite the imagination the most powerfully and delightfully.

Imagination has brought mankind through the dark ages to its present state of civilization. Imagination led Columbus to discover America. Imagination led Franklin to discover electricity.

I want to be taken seriously as the type of musician that plays stuff like an electric rake. I mean how seriously do you take someone like Spike Jones? They take him pretty seriously - a really good musician who made a great contribution in terms of humor which is part of what I try to do too.

What I hope is in five years' time I can go to the British people in the election and say: Lots of you doubted that coalition politics worked but it has worked.

As a relatively young woman - I'm 33 - I hope to one day have a family and already have commitments. If and when I'm elected as an MP I would face a choice: take my family with me to London each week or be apart for four maybe five nights a week.

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 hope Obama gets scary in the next four years 'cuz he ain't gotta worry about getting re-elected.

In an election one needs both hope and audacity.

In the end that's what this election is about. Do we participate in a politics of cynicism or a politics of hope?

The killer app that got the world ready for appliances was the light bulb. So the light bulb is what wired the world. And they weren't thinking about appliances when they wired the world. They were really thinking about - they weren't putting electricity into the home. They were putting lighting into the home.