We immigrants can sometimes sound a little hysterical about this because we come from places that have tried this and we know where it leads. Anybody who's lived in countries with socialized health care knows that it becomes the dominant political issue.

The bottom line is that the human body is complex and subtle and oversimplifying - as common sense sometimes impels us to do - can be hazardous to your health.

Medicine sometimes snatches away health sometimes gives it.

Healing is a matter of time but it is sometimes also a matter of opportunity.

'Tis healthy to be sick sometimes.

Lots of people I know have bootlegged tapes of performances and if they play it I will be transported back sometimes with happiness sometimes with horror.

I'd rather have happiness than money. People ask for it. Sometimes when I don't have it. I make other people's problems my problem because they want me to they ask me to.

I love being on stage. I'm completely totally relaxed. It's the only time in my life when I know where I am and what's coming next. The other Robert Powell is probably fairly melancholic. Let's just say happiness isn't my default position. There are dark parts. I'm very good at it. I frighten people sometimes.

Friends have suggested that I am the least qualified person to talk about happiness because I am often down and sometimes profoundly depressed. But I think that's where my qualification comes from. Because to know happiness it helps to know unhappiness.

My travels led me to where I am today. Sometimes these steps have felt painful difficult but led me to greater happiness and opportunites.