To seek understanding before taking action yet to trust my instincts when action is called for. Never to avoid danger from fear never to seek out danger for its own sake. Never to conform to fashion from fear of eccentricity never to be eccentric from fear of conformity.

I do support artists standing by their beliefs and walking with integrity. We have to find a better way to commercially exploit music while giving artists their proper respect. This cannot be done while taking their contributions for granted or trying to control the scope of their growth and power through threats and fear tactics.

I define fear as standing across the ring from Joe Louis and knowing he wants to go home early.

What is needed rather than running away or controlling or suppressing or any other resistance is understanding fear that means watch it learn about it come directly into contact with it. We are to learn about fear not how to escape from it.

Quite often I can be in a bookshop standing beneath a great big picture of myself and paying for a book with a credit card clearly marked John Grisham yet no one recognises me. I often say I'm a famous author in a country where no one reads.

I have a profound empathy for people who are in the public eye whether they manifest it themselves or whether it happened by accident - it doesn't matter to me. I think there's a great misunderstanding of what it is to be famous.

I grew up in a family where the internalized understanding was that the kids were going to grow up into a better world. I worry because I don't think my kids are going to have that. The world is very scary. The world would be scary without the choices the current administration made but they just exacerbated it. And it ticks me off. I want my kids to have a good life.

My encounters with racism are sort of second-hand situations where I might be standing around with a group of white friends and someone makes a comment that they wouldn't make at my family reunion.

Having family responsibilities and concerns just has to make you a more understanding person.

But the problem is that when I go around and speak on campuses I still don't get young men standing up and saying 'How can I combine career and family?'