You can't make people change, but the organizers of WorldFest hope that people consider being vegetarian for both moral and health reasons.

Starship was a whole different thing. It was pop rock. It made more money and had more hit songs than Airplane. There was no cultural or social ethic behind it. For me, it was like selling out. I was the only one selling out. The rest enjoyed doing what they were doing.

Through literacy you can begin to see the universe. Through music you can reach anybody. Between the two there is you, unstoppable.

When you learn that a truth is a lie, anger follows.

Jon Stewart, Bill Maher, Stephen Colbert. Those are the guys I look at who are telling me pretty much the truth. And they throw humor into it which makes it much more interesting to listen to.

I went to India and met some people who had been involved in this guerrilla business, middle-class people who were rather vain and foolish. There was no revolutionary grandeur to it. Nothing.

Some writers can only deal with childhood experience, because it's complete. For another kind of writer, life goes on, and he's able to keep processing that as well.

What was past was past. I suppose that was the general attitude.

Trinidad may seem complex, but to anyone who knows it, it is a simple, colonial, philistine society.

When I learnt to write I became my own master, I became very strong, and that strength is with me to this very day.

To be converted you have to destroy your past, destroy your history. You have to stamp on it, you have to say 'my ancestral culture does not exist, it doesn't matter.'

It's very attractive to people to be a victim. Instead of having to think out the whole situation, about history and your group and what you are doing... if you begin from the point of view of being a victim, you've got it half-made. I mean intellectually.

I read many things. I read to fill in my knowledge of the world.

It is important not to trust people too much.

The world is always in movement.

The world is what it is; men who are nothing, who allow themselves to become nothing, have no place in it.

One must always try to see the truth of a situation - it makes things universal.

What I felt was, if you spend your life just writing fiction, you are going to falsify your material. And the fictional form was going to force you to do things with the material, to dramatize it in a certain way. I thought nonfiction gave one a chance to explore the world, the other world, the world that one didn't know fully.

One isn't born one's self. One is born with a mass of expectations, a mass of other people's ideas - and you have to work through it all.

Home is, I suppose just a child's idea. A house at night, and a lamp in the house. A place to feel safe.

I always knew who I was and where I had come from. I was not looking for a home in other people's lands.

Confront the dark parts of yourself, and work to banish them with illumination and forgiveness. Your willingness to wrestle with your demons will cause your angels to sing.

My first wife is a good woman, I still can't say nothing bad about her other than the fact that we had a difference on religion. She wanted someone who was a Muslim who shared those values. And I was like a heathen. I had to stay home on Sundays and watch the football game.

Once I started to value and respect my characters, I could really hear them. I just let them start talking.

Jazz in itself is not struggling. That is, the music itself is not struggling... It's the attitude that's in trouble. My plays insist that we should not forget or toss away our history.

I think all in all, one thing a lot of plays seem to be saying is that we need to, as black Americans, to make a connection with our past in order to determine the kind of future we're going to have. In other words, we simply need to know who we are in relation to our historical presence in America.

I had always been fascinated with Napoleon because he was a self-made emperor; Victor Hugo said, 'Napoleon's will to power,' and it was the title of my paper. And I submitted it to my teacher, and he didn't think I had written it. And he wanted me to explain it to him.

Like most people, I have this sort of love-hate relationship with Pittsburgh. This is my home, and at times I miss it and find it tremendously exciting, and other times I want to catch the first thing out that has wheels.

I think I have a mental nappy attitude.

You white folks see UFOs in your dreams. You don't hear about Martians in Harlem.

I got my sense of humor from my grandmother. You know, my grandmother was very funny.

The thrill of performing - that's something that hasn't changed for me. That simultaneous joy of creating something and sharing it with an audience - it's the same now as it was then, when it was just my cousins' birthday party.

Communication is the key, and it's one thing I had to learn-to talk to the actors. I was so involved with the visual and technical aspects that I would forget about the actors.

Bob Altman had this relaxed but serious attitude. Everybody loved him. I wanted him to adopt me.

Growing up, yeah, I had a magic kit with learn tricks and learn card tricks, but I was never... I used to watch whatever magic special was on as a kid, but then, it's not that I lost interest, but to be a magician, you really, it's really hard work. Learning lines is hard enough; learning sleight of hand, that's real practice.

When I moved to the East Village in the late seventies, I wanted to be a street performer, so I practiced daily. I never did work up the skills or the courage to perform on the street, though.

What was frustrating about Armageddon was the time I spent not doing anything. It was a big special effects film, and I wasn't crazy about pretending I was in outer space. It feels ridiculous.

There's a certain type of character that you can't help but come in contact with growing up and living in Brooklyn and Long Island. A certain mixture of moxie, heart, and a wise guy sense of humor.

I read the script and decide if a particular character looks fun to play. I look for complexity and a sense of humor. Those are crucial, real things to life.

I just like playing interesting, complex, complicated characters. I like films that also have an element of humor.

My dad had a temper. I have a temper. Most people I know have a temper. And I think it comes out mostly with your family. I don't think it's unique to the Buscemis, but it's something I've been able to tap into when I play certain roles.

I never thought I was particularly good looking. But when I see old photographs, I realise that I was. I do wish I had known that at the time because beauty is power. I didn't realise how lucky I was to be young, beautiful and in Hollywood. It didn't hit me. Every day I woke up, went to the film studio and just got on with it.

We live in a quick-fix society where we need instant gratification for everything. Too fat? Get lipo-sucked. Stringy hair? Glue on extensions. Wrinkles and lines? Head to the beauty shop for a pot of the latest miracle skin stuff. It's all a beautiful £1 billion con foisted upon insecure women by canny cosmetic conglomerates.

The problem with beauty is that it's like being born rich and getting poorer.

What is so weird is that young people who want to be 'celebrities' do not want to put in the hard work. They don't want to do the training, go to drama school, read Shakespeare, try different accents and study technique. They just want to be famous. It is not just in England; it's the same in America and all over Europe.

I say, 'Use it or lose it.' I have my own fitness regime, which is centred around stretching, free-weights and fast walking. I also have a trainer half of the year, as I spend my summers in the south of France where I swim a lot.

I think it has something to do with being British. We don't take ourselves as seriously as some other countries do. I think a lot of people take themselves far too seriously; I find that a very tedious attitude.

The sad truth is that most of my husbands turned out to be convincing liars.

Of course it's true: the public want to see young people - young people are the people who go to the cinema. It's a sad fact of life, but you've got to accept it and not whine about it.

I've three children, three grandchildren, I work, I travel, and I'm very happily married. I'm very satisfied and happy with my life and there really isn't anything I want.