If I could visit dead authors, I'd head right over to E. B. White, though I'm so in awe of him I'd probably just sit at his feet and weep. He's the master of clarity, of understated humor, of palatable political conviction.

I find life a mix of humor and pathos, and all my books reflect that to one degree or another.

No matter what you write, you need an active imagination.

Ideas come from life: what happens in mine, what I see happening in others', mixed with a great deal of imagination. I might see a person in a grocery store and build a whole character and life out of what's in her basket.

Some people read an interesting or provocative newspaper article, and that's the end of that. A writer reads such an article, and her imagination gets fired up. Questions occur to her. She might feel an urge to finish the story that the article suggests.

I want to live a very positive and optimistic life that has a wonderful outlook on the future and the impact that I will have on the world and the people around me.

I was raised in a deeply Catholic family. There was a sense that everything we were doing was to prepare ourselves for an afterlife in heaven. In my teenage years, that became less important to me. Eventually, that turned into agnosticism, which became atheism.

I'm a deeply romantic person, nostalgic to a fault.

I find everything in life a little bit sad, but I also find a great deal of hope everywhere I look.

It's something that you pick up at a history class in college, the idea that history and time is something to which we can't even hold a candle to. We, as human beings, are just a small element in the overarching sweep of narrative history. That really had a profound effect on me, that realization.

Time goes by so slowly when you're a child, and then, as an adult, it goes by in the blink of an eye.

Just imagine, the thousands and thousands of concerts that take place every single day, all over the world. And the positive effect that they would have on the people listening. Now imagine a world without this. This void... it is unthinkable.

I have been to Kashmir many times, especially with my family, in the '70s.

I respect the Indian government for the fact that there are no settlements in Kashmir.

An American orchestra doesn't want to play more than it has to. I respectfully disagree with that attitude.

Rock music is predictable, unless there's great talent involved.

My father was a trained accountant, a BCom from Sydenham College and a self-taught violinist. In the 1920s, when he was in his teens, he heard a great violinist, Jascha Heifetz, and he was so inspired listening to him that he bought himself a violin, and with a little help from an Italian teacher, he learned to play it.

Music is the message of peace, and music only brings peace.

My parents had chosen the medical profession for me. I even studied a few semesters at St Xavier's College, but at the back of my mind, I always wanted to be a musician like my father.

In your 40s, you shed those who bring you down and surround yourself with the most positive people you know.

I remember being banned from other houses as a younger child during the winter holiday season; I was the only one who didn't believe in Santa Claus, and I was ruining everyone's Christmas.

Nearly all inventions are not recognised for their positive side either when they're made. So, for example, scientists didn't go out to design a CD machine: they designed a laser. But we got all sorts of things from a laser which we never remotely imagined, and we're still finding things for a laser to do.

I went to school with butterflies of fear every day for years - from primary school onwards - not just worried about being bullied by classmates, but by teachers.

By discovering how our minds work, we can improve our learning power and unlock our true potential.

My first vote was for a communist in east London when I was a medical student. But I've voted Tory, Labour and Lib Dem in my time.

Everything we produce and consume has an impact on the environment, on social fabrics, and on the economy. This impact can be positive or negative and, frequently, some combination of the two.

Responsive governments committed to improving the broader trade facilitation and business environment can help companies of all sizes by improving infrastructure: roads, transportation, ports, information and communication technology, and electricity.

Entrepreneurs - both women and men - need equal and fair access to finance - to create new businesses, to reach to new markets, and to adapt to climate change.

Around the world, it is much more difficult for women than for men to run a successful business. Even when laws are not explicitly biased against them, companies owned and operated by women often face discrimination every step of the way, from obtaining finance to finding customers.

Governments everywhere have ministries dedicated to women's affairs. I know of only one with a Ministry for Women Empowerment: Indonesia. Charged with the 'realization of gender equality and justice' together with children's well-being, the ministry frames gender equality as a matter of justice.

Skills development as a means to income generation is the key to integrate vulnerable migrants into the mainstream of society and to equip them for an eventual return home.

We survey companies and ask them what the barriers to export and import are. Once we map these barriers, we sit down with the companies on one side and the government and regulatory agencies on the other and help them identify obstacles to trade and what has to be done to tackle them.

The social and legal discrimination that relegates hundreds of women to subordinate or marginal economic roles has a huge aggregate cost.

Technology is making it easier for women to connect to business opportunities around the world. Legal obstacles must not be allowed to stand in their way. That's not just because it's economically smart. It's because discrimination shouldn't be the law.

All company bosses want a policy on corporate social responsibility. The positive effect is hard to quantify, but the negative consequences of a disaster are enormous.

Without industry, finance and government consciously and collaboratively ensuring that capital flows to where it is needed in order to ensure the scaling up of climate change solutions, whatever deal is agreed risks never being realised.

With clothing being designed that allows you to be hugged virtually, video conferencing becoming ever sharper, and our social and romantic lives increasingly taking place online, the gap between the physical and the virtual is getting ever smaller.

The problem lies with us: we've become addicted to experts. We've become addicted to their certainty, their assuredness, their definitiveness, and in the process, we have ceded our responsibility, substituting our intellect and our intelligence for their supposed words of wisdom.

Transparency, accountability and sustainability have become the slogans of the market leaders. Companies carry out environmental and social audits to court the consumer, and even the bluest chips woo organisations such as Greenpeace and Amnesty.

It is a world of extremes, which can be characterised most clearly in terms of exclusion. That means political exclusion, whereby the rights of citizens are marginalised by the interests of big business: George W Bush's environmental policy, for example, is clearly formulated in the interests of U.S. energy companies.

What is social proof? Put simply, it's the positive influence created when someone finds out that others are doing something. It's also known as informational social influence.

When I was growing up, I had lots of smart classmates that were girls, but none of us were really pushed into math or computers or anything like that. Girls took AP history and AP English and AP European history. And boys took calculus and physics.

Spend the first six to 12 months building a great product or service that people love, rather than chasing investors. When the time comes to engage investors, you will be meeting them from a position of strength. This makes all the difference.

My dad was a dentist; my mom managed his office.

I always make a joke: 'Don't look into the future; it's too bright.' That's as positive as I can be.

We all act differently in certain places. We don't want to admit it, but we're different where we grew up than we are with our family and than we are with the guys that we went to college with or our fraternity brothers. People just exist differently. It's small, subtle things, but different colors come out. That's all there is to it.

I hate the gym, so I try to diversify my workouts with swimming and basketball. Indoors, it's less boring than running. I do find that diet is key. I eat lots of lean protein, no soda, no fast food or fried foods, and a lot of water. But I love food and often cook.

Those who really value Ukrainian sovereignty should opt for real independence and a positive neutrality: neither a plaything of the West nor Moscow.

I was in my mid-teens when someone gave me a copy of 'Pears Encyclopaedia of Myth and Legends' as a birthday present. It sat on my shelves for many months before I looked at it. When I did, I couldn't stop reading it.

The patchwork political landscape of the Arab world - the client monarchies, degenerated nationalist dictatorships, and the imperial petrol stations known as the Gulf states - was the outcome of an intensive experience of Anglo-French colonialism.