For me Barack Obama's election was a milestone of the most extraordinary kind. On the day he was elected I felt such hope in my heart. I thought we were seeing the beginning of a new era of equal opportunity across race and gender such as America had never known before.

When things are bad we take comfort in the thought that they could always get worse. And when they are we find hope in the thought that things are so bad they have to get better.

I place no hope in my strength nor in my works: but all my confidence is in God my protector who never abandons those who have put all their hope and thought in him.

But yeah I'm really happy when I'm writing. When I'm being creative and when I have something that I can put down. You know if you go out and you overhear a conversation or you have a thought you have a receptacle to go home and say 'Oh this would be great in this script.' Your antenna's out in a different way and I love that time.

Well I'm not good with sliminess. I hate the thought of creatures that have slime on them or creatures that leave a slimy trail. At home the sight of a slug can bring up my breakfast.

In the later books I am much more at home in the use of language to describe things. I had never thought of that until a critic pointed that out.

Oh stuff the critics. I don't care. Too many people are snooty about classical. Look I wasn't brought up in a home where we listened to classical music. It was a singing teacher that thought it would be best for my voice. Then I moved into crossover. And if that makes the music accessible to more people then great.

Spare a thought for the poor introverts among us. In a world of party animals and glad-handers they're the ones who stand by the punch bowl. In a world of mixers and pub crawls they prefer to stay home with a book. Everywhere around them cell phones ring and e-mails chime and they just want a little quiet.

In the theatre people talk. Talk talk until the cows come home about journeys of discovery and about what Hazlitt thought of a line of Shakespeare. I can't stand it.

Sometimes in the past when I played something might make me lose focus or I would go home after a game where I thought I could have played better and I would let it hang over my head for a long time when it shouldn't.