If I were given the opportunity to present a gift to the next generation it would be the ability for each individual to learn to laugh at himself.

It's a different era. Our job now is to show leadership and vision and to help the next generation of artists.

The biggest novelty of 2013 will be new leadership in China. Very little is known about the views of the new leaders - who will rule the country for ten years. But we do know they're the first generation of Chinese leaders who have spent the majority of their lives in a China 'opening up' to the rest of the world.

The tree of knowledge is not the tree of life! And yet can we cast out of our spirits all the good or evil poured into them by so many learned generations? Ignorance cannot be learned.

We need to get back to reasoning and thinking things through. The future generation is being brought up in greed and without a true understanding of civics. There is no more emphasis on knowledge and time. As a society we need to process ideas and understand what certain principles are based upon.

I was one of the first generations to watch television. TV exposes people to news to information to knowledge to entertainment. How is it bad?

If you look back today over the last 25 years it is a fact that we have had a progressive degeneration of our intelligence community in general in particular in the field of human intelligence.

A John Updike is a once-in-a-generation phenomenon if that generation is lucky: so comfortable in so many genres the same lively generous intelligence suffusing all he did.

The conscious process is reflected in the imagination the unconscious process is expressed as karma the generation of actions divorced from thinking and alienated from feeling.

I'm thrilled to continue my partnership with U by Kotex for Generation Know while helping to empower girls. I've always been a motivational resource for my younger sisters and hope I can positively impact and inspire other young girls too.