Faith is much better than belief. Belief is when someone else does the thinking.

Faith is an oasis in the heart which will never be reached by the caravan of thinking.

Pressure is a word that is misused in our vocabulary. When you start thinking of pressure it's because you've started to think of failure.

Fear stifles our thinking and actions. It creates indecisiveness that results in stagnation. I have known talented people who procrastinate indefinitely rather than risk failure. Lost opportunities cause erosion of confidence and the downward spiral begins.

I was thinking that we all learn by experience but some of us have to go to summer school.

I had the closest thing I have ever had to an out-of-body experience lying in bed one morning. I turned on the 'Today' programme and item four on the news was: 'The shadow chancellor has ruled himself out of the leadership.' I lay there thinking that's interesting then I realised it was me.

Certainly I've had the experience of thinking a person was one thing and finding out they were another.

Not only did I avoid speaking of Salinger I resisted thinking about him. I did not reread his letters to me. The experience had been too painful.

When I'm writing I'm constantly thinking about myself because it's the only experience I have to draw on. And I don't see an exact reflection of myself in every face in the audience but I know that my songs have validity to them and that's why the fans are there.

There can be nothing exclusive about substantial art. It comes directly out of the heart of the experience of life and thinking about life and living life.