Alexander Wang is a young designer, and his style is so profound. He took sports and street and kind of combined it into upscale high fashion. He made a white T-shirt a luxury.

I used to do design before I was actually rapping. I went to art and design high school.

I want a hit. I don't think anybody spends 12 months writing and recording an album, making something cool, and says, 'Great, I hope this doesn't sell.' I don't understand that mind-set. I want hits: a big bunch of them.

On an emotional level, success in America would be terrible for me; it would be insane. I really, seriously, never want to be famous here.

I have only one ambition, which is to be famous.

You've got a beautiful country with so many beautiful people and so many beautiful things happening and stuff like that lets it down. I feel sad for them.

We did some cool wire work in 'The Pact' - they had me strapped to a harness underneath my shirt so they could fling me around the house and slam me into doors. I definitely got some bruises even with all the padding!

I've danced my whole life. Martial arts is just fun for me, it's all choreographed a bit like dance. I have done Muay Thai and Wushu, which is cool because it's very fluid dance. I also do Tricking. It's kind of like Taekwondo with the big kicks and flips and showier aspects of martial arts.

Lady Gaga? She's cool! She works really hard. When we would have our dance rehearsals, she wasn't the singer that was like, 'Oh, I'll just stand in front.' She wanted to learn everything - she was doing the dance moves. She's a good dancer.

The power of the human spirit inspires me. Movies, books, stories, people, anything that reminds us that we are more than just this physical body and our capacity for love and courage can bend reality.

There are different types of talents and intelligences, and traditional schools sometimes ignore the creative ones. It is important for us to give kids every platform for them to find what they are good at and what they love. The arts also provide a space for newfound creativity.

I find it really funny that men can always get away with being a ladies man. Everyone thinks it's really cool. But a girl can't really date boys all the time because everybody looks down on her. I think boys get away with things so much easier.

My favorite emoji is definitely the sad face, like the 'See, I'm sorry' sad face, which I use all the time... Or the monkey face, where he's covering his eyes.

I love to perform, to give glory to God with my own brand of funky gospel music. I think it's my mission to show people that God, that Jesus, can be cool.

I'm very quiet. In the beginning, my brother would play the piano, and I would sing, because that's what my mom and dad did. And then along the way, somebody teased me for even thinking that I could get up there. That stayed with me, and I became very shy.

My best friend was really cool, and she went to a youth theatre in Paisley, so I thought maybe that's the way to do it. I went along, and I immediately found something I was passionate about and really enjoyed.

I've done a few old-style romantic leads now.

If only media people would stop reaching for the low-hanging fruit, which is cynicism and pessimism, and stopped trying so hard to be hip and cool and have a swagger.

We've lost touch and allowed technology to take precedence over organic nature. But let's not forget that those microchips in our computers came from elements of the earth.

There is a part of me that still wants to go out and grab a backpack and unplug - not take a cellphone or even a camera and just get out there and experience the world and travel. I have yet to do that, but someday I hope.

In making certain things easier for people, technology has actually demotivated people from using their brains. We have all these devices that keep us connected, and yet we're more disconnected than ever before. Why is that?

I'm a wonderful disaster. So are you. We're all a mess. We're in this culture that says take this pill and you'll be happy, go on this diet and you'll be thinner, have your teeth whitened, people will love you more.

A lot of those little things that I really like doing are just moments of cool articulation, just little moments of phrasing that probably go over everybody's head.

I didn't have any aspirations of becoming famous or successful; in fact I was scared to death of all that. I remember somebody once said that if a rock musician goes on tour, he goes insane. I was very impressionable and I carried this useless weight of fear around with me about going on tour, all because of this thing somebody said.

I've learned over the years that you're going to be most successful at the things you're most excited to do. Every artist has a special set of tools. When you really use those tools, and you make yourself feel really good about the product you create, I think you'll find an audience for it. I've been very fortunate in that respect.

Along with its enchanting and exquisite melodies, West Side Story has attitude and a tremendous amount of frenetic energy. It's emotional, theatrical and technical. It's everything.

I'm always pursuing knowledge; I'm a seeker of spiritual equilibrium - and music is a big part of that.

When you get down to it, the way that the music affects you individually is the most important thing, and when you let things like the location of a band get in the way or have an effect on your overview, you're cheating yourself out of a really good time.

As far as Deep Purple goes, I mean, they're iconic. Their contribution is unquantifiable, and as far as the politics involved in things like awards, you know, I don't think anything, because I know what they mean to me, and I know what they mean to the people who like them. Awards are very politically based.

Possessing a healthy imagination is a necessary ingredient for creativity.

I like Patti Smith's lyrics, and sometimes think I could be influenced by them. But she has a kind of cool that's beyond me.

When I was 16, I was taught by a wonderful teacher who let me ignore the Greek syllabus and just read Homer.

If you put a real leaf and a silk leaf side by side, you'll see something of the difference between Homer's poetry and anyone else's. There seem to be real leaves still alive in the 'Iliad,' real animals, real people, real light attending everything.

I think it's often assumed that the role of poetry is to comfort, but for me, poetry is the great unsettler. It questions the established order of the mind. It is radical, by which I don't mean that it is either leftwing or rightwing, but that it works at the roots of thinking.

Stripped of its plot, the 'Iliad' is a scattering of names and biographies of ordinary soldiers: men who trip over their shields, lose their courage or miss their wives. In addition to these, there is a cast of anonymous people: the farmers, walkers, mothers, neighbours who inhabit its similes.

I think I'm so old I'm in. We call it the 'Tony Bennett Syndrome.' For some reason, young people think I'm cool.

I believe that young people are looking for answers to the big questions just like everyone else, and that they respect intelligent comment to help guide them through tough times.

All vacations can come down to a few little moments - what do your remember when you're alone, totally relaxed and taken out of yourself to appreciate this other world.

It's a beautiful thing, diving into the cool crisp water and then just sort of being able to pull your body through the water and the water opening up for you.

Although the rugby league fraternity probably don't like it, the rugby union fraternity probably doesn't like it, it's cool for sportsmen, for young kids coming up, to know that there's not just that one door.

Just like in rugby, the pinnacle was playing for the All Blacks. That was always a massive thing. But you never speak it outwardly because it can sound stupid. But if you don't have massive dreams, you might as well stay in bed.

If a lawyer, if a teacher, if a bus driver, if they're on $40,000 and they get offered a lot more to go somewhere else, what do you think they're going to do?

If you're a kid who's not necessarily attractive, and you don't have money, and you're not hip and cool, chances are you're not going to feel good about yourself and want to be an actor.

Some girls are intimidated by my height, obviously. But a lot of girls do like it, so that's cool.

And in a world without heroes, as the movie trailer voice-over guy might say, the slightly awkward can be slightly cool.

Comic books aren't nerdy. You'd have to be an idiot to think computers are nerdy.

I have been in teen shows for years, so doing that stuff - kissing - is kind of commonplace and not a big deal. It was way more cool just because it was Meg Ryan.

With all of you men out there who think that having a thousand different ladies is pretty cool, I have learned in my life I've found out that having one woman a thousand different times is much more satisfying.

The man who won't loan money isn't going to have many friends - or need them.

I believe that good things come to those who work.