Sympathy for victims is always counter-balanced by an equal and opposite feeling of resentment towards them.

It requires more strength to be gentle so it's the everyday encounters of life that I think we've prepared children for and prepared them to be good to other people and to consider other people.

Sports broadcasting is very open now. In the beginning you did encounter more traditional attitudes and get comments. But I'm talking about 12 years ago.

I think it's great that we have organisations like Greenpeace. In a pluralistic society we want to have people who point out all the problems that the Earth could encounter. But we need to understand that they are not presenting a full and rounded view.

'Eyes Wide Open' took shape from two real life events straight from my own past. One was the sad suicide of my young nephew a troubled kid who was found at the bottom of a landmark cliff in central California. The second was a chance encounter forty years ago with none other than ahem Charles Manson!

More generally I made an effort to leave out things that weren't relevant to the main narrative themes of the book namely that there were two sides to Steve Jobs: the romantic poetic countercultural rebel on one side and the serious businessperson on the other.

It's easier to write from my own life and it's also more fun. I always write about relationships for instance whether they're romantic relationships friendships encounters... there's always a lesson to be learned from them.

Writing for children is bloody difficult books for children are as complex as their adult counterparts and they should therefore be accorded the same respect.

Whether one believes or not religion is as real a force in the life of the world as economics or politics and it demands fair-minded attention. Even if you think the entire religious enterprise is at best misguided and at worst counterproductive it remains vital inspiring great good and sometimes great evil.

I accepted the interviews and encounters that had to be held with the media but I would have preferred to work in peace.