If I do a poetry reading I want people to walk out and say they feel better for having been there - not because you've done a comedy performance but because you're talking about your father dying or having young children things that touch your soul.

I'm hopefully touring with Colin Baker next year in Perfect Strangers. I have performed with Sylvia Simms in poetry and music evenings. I would love to do those for the rest of my career - they are so fun and witty.

Written poetry is different. Best thing is to see it in performance first then read it. Performance is more provocative.

And my father was a comic. He could play any musical instrument. He loved to perform. He was a wonderfully comedic character. He had the ability to dance and sing and charm and analyze poetry.

Pet me touch me love me that's what I get when I perform. That's when I'm really getting what I want.

Bob Marley performed the 'One Love Peace' concert in Jamaica with the two different warring political sides. There's always been that in black music and culture in general. It's no surprise because black music is such a reflection of what's going on in black life. It's not unusual for hip-hop.

The mobilisation which Bush has been able to perform since 11 September 2001 has to be fought - at least by Americans - in the name of a wise honourable and democratic patriotism.

I think most artists create out of despair. The very nature of creation is not a performing glory on the outside it's a painful difficult search within.

Quantum computation is... a distinctively new way of harnessing nature... It will be the first technology that allows useful tasks to be performed in collaboration between parallel universes.

It is better to do one's own duty however defective it may be than to follow the duty of another however well one may perform it. He who does his duty as his own nature reveals it never sins.