The quality that defines us as Americans is the courage to respond to being hit. The courage to root out and destroy the killers. And most importantly the courage to hold on to our values and protect our hard-won freedoms while doing it.

Maybe you will be afraid and maybe you will fail but the courage to take risks in any part of your life is I feel a very worthwhile way to live.

TV is so different from the movies. It takes a lot of stamina because you work such long hours. It is really challenging. You are learning the next day's lines while you are shooting today's scenes. I found courage I never realised I had. I hope to do more.

While President Bush likes to project an image of strength and courage the real truth is that in the presence of his large financial contributors he is a moral coward.

Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength while loving someone deeply gives you courage.

It's cool to be in the paper every once in awhile and people read about you and they know who you are.

I have this desire to just while away weeks months and years. It took me two years to make this record but that was with me trying to condense my process and not disappear down the rabbit hole with all the cool things I've collected. I could take 10 years and not explore everything I want to with these instruments.

My friend and I sang an a cappella rendition of Extreme's 'More Than Words' at one of our football pep rallies in a desperate attempt to look cool. For a while I wore pink Converse All Stars because I thought it made me seem daring and irreverent.

I joined MySpace in September 2003. At that time no one was on there at all. I felt like a loser while all the cool kids were at some other school. So I mass e-mailed between 30 000 and 50 000 people and told them to come over. Everybody joined overnight.

Don't get me wrong magic is cool. But a nervous mother singing to her child at night while something moves quietly through the dark outside her house? That's a story. Handled properly it's more dramatic than any apocalypse or goblin army could ever be.