“To be one, to be united is a great thing. But to respect the right to be different is maybe even greater.”

What turns me on about the digital age, what excited me personally, is that you have closed the gap between dreaming and doing. You see, it used to be that if you wanted to make a record of a song, you needed a studio and a producer. Now, you need a laptop.

But with Christ, we have access in a one-to-one relationship, for, as in the Old Testament, it was more one of worship and awe, a vertical relationship.

Peace’ is when nobody’s shooting. A ‘just peace’ is when our side gets what it wants.

It’s still very difficult for me to rely. Your weakness, the blessing of your weakness is it forces you into friendships. The things that you lack, you look for in others.

From the start it has been the theatre’s business to entertain people … it needs no other passport than fun.

This is the complacency I have run into.

When those people get up at the Grammys and say, “I thank God”, I always imagine God going, “Oh, don’t, please don’t thank me for that one. Please, oh, that’s an awful one! Don’t thank me for that – that’s a piece of crap !”

Sub-Saharan Africa is also home to 400 million of the world’s poorest people.

Men habitually use only a small part of the power which they actually possess.

Let’s not bequeath the pop charts to just children.

At the end of the day, I want to spend time with my daughter, and this schedule enables me to do that while still having fun hosting ‘106 Park.’ I’m not really eager to get back into music just yet; I’m really eager to get into another movie before I put out an album.

The only person who ever called me Paul was my father, so I always associate it with doing something wrong, you know. So, you know, occasionally, people will come up to me on the street and try to, you know, ingratiate themselves and call me Paul. I don’t like it, actually.

There was a moment when Prince did rock & roll with a sponge-y seductive sound. I think that’s what was in our head for ‘Get On Your Boots.’ But actually, the song is much more punk rock.

Music can change the world because it can change people.

Everybody thinks I’m at death’s door, but I’m not. There’s nothing seriously wrong with me, and my heart is in 100 percent working order. Anything else you may hear is a damn lie!

If you pour your life into songs, you want them to be heard. It’s a desire to communicate. A deep desire to communicate inspires songwriting.

No one ever found wisdom without also being a fool. Writers, alas, have to be fools in public, while the rest of the human race can cover its tracks.

The act of revealing oneself fully to another and still being accepted may be the major vehicle of therapeutic help.

I thought, briefly, that I would never feel as intensely connected to the world, to another human being, as I did at that moment.

Being honest doesn’t mean you say whatever you want, wherever you want. It means that what you choose to say is true.

I don’t have any special passion for politics, it being a never-ending merry-go-round of bosses big and small, all generally mediocre. I actually find it boring.

My work stops at publication. If the books don’t contain in themselves their reasons for being – questions and answers – it means I was wrong to have them published.

Being raised in a developing country opened my eyes to so much I cannot tolerate. In Colombia, education is sometimes considered a luxury, not a human right. And it’s not a priority in the agendas of many leaders.

Quarrel? Nonsense; we have not quarreled. If one is not to get into a rage sometimes, what is the good of being friends?