I'd gone from being this art student messing about with music to this girl with a record deal magazine front covers and all this hype. In many ways it was everything I ever wanted but when it happened all I felt was total paralysing fear.

Love is the total absence of fear. Love asks no questions. Its natural state is one of extension and expansion not comparison and measurement.

The Cuban people still live in constant fear of a brutal totalitarian regime that has demonstrated time and again its utter disregard for basic human dignity. The fight for a free Cuba has gone on for far too long.

I totally related to Cole Porter's magnetic pull to any piano that was in the room which he was famous for doing as was Gershwin. You couldn't drag them away from a piano.

And to me fame is not a positive thing. The idea of being famous is a lot better than the reality. It's fantastic when you go to premieres and people cheer you but it's not real. And it's totally not my approach to get my name on a club door just because I can.

The hardest thing about being famous is that people are always nice to you. You're in a conversation and everybody's agreeing with what you're saying - even if you say something totally crazy. You need people who can tell you what you don't want to hear.

When I do get free time I spend a lot of it at home with my family and my close friends and I think that's what keeps me happy healthy grounded and totally in check.

If you want to see mankind fully look at a family. Within the family minds become organically one and for this reason the family is total poetry.

It would make life much easier if I could have total faith and not question everything all the time but I can't do it and I won't do it.

In times when religious or political faith or hope predominates the writer functions totally in unison with society and expresses society's feelings beliefs and hopes in perfect harmony.