When I was straight I had the courage and energy to become an actress. I owe my career to my will to stop using.

We are biological creatures. We are born we live we die. There is no transcendent purpose to existence. At best we are creatures of reason and by using reason we can cure ourselves of emotional excess. Purged of both hope and fear we find courage in the face of helplessness insignificance and uncertainty.

I saw a drummer play once when I was a kid and I thought that's really cool. You know you're moving. You're using your arms and fingers. So I tried it and I loved it.

Everyone hooks up with George Clooney. He's a genuinely cool guy. He's using his powers for good.

The idea of recognising your strengths and using them in as versatile a way as you can is cool to me.

I'm looking to evolve the concept of the new renaissance artist taking the world by storm through the art of public display and demonstration with technical savvy using cell phones and computers.

I realized that I loved using computers to create something but being an architect just wasn't going to keep me interested. The idea of a life spent obsessing over bathroom details for an Upper East Side penthouse was pretty depressing.

I've never been much of a computer guy at least in terms of playing with computers. Actually until I was about 11 I didn't use a computer for preparing for games at all. I was playing a bit online was using the chess club mainly. Now obviously the computer is an important tool for me preparing for my games.

But I'm so slow on it because I find it terribly hard writing blind on computers. The computer speaks to me but it's just so slow I'm so terribly slow using it.

It was used for decades to describe talented computer enthusiasts people whose skill at using computers to solve technical problems and puzzles was - and is - respected and admired by others possessing similar technical skills.

I was born left-handed but I was made to use my other hand. When I was writing 'Famished Road ' which was very long I got repetitive stress syndrome. My right wrist collapsed so I started using my left hand. The prose I wrote with my left hand came out denser so later on I had to change it.

Change brings opportunities. On the other hand change can be confusing.

Even before he came to power in 1997 Gordon Brown promised to change the accounts to parliament from simple litanies of cash in and cash out to a more commercial system that took notice of the public property the departments were using. This system is known as resource accounting.

The damage that climate change is causing and that will get worse if we fail to act goes beyond the hundreds of thousands of lives homes and businesses lost ecosystems destroyed species driven to extinction infrastructure smashed and people inconvenienced.

Instead of focusing on that circumstances that you cannot change - focus strongly and powerfully on the circumstances that you can.

As human beings we are vulnerable to confusing the unprecedented with the improbable. In our everyday experience if something has never happened before we are generally safe in assuming it is not going to happen in the future but the exceptions can kill you and climate change is one of those exceptions.

Nothing is so perfectly amusing as a total change of ideas.

Using the power of decision gives you the capacity to get past any excuse to change any and every part of your life in an instant.

A gun can be dangerous. But a gun can protect you you can hunt for food with it - you know the tool itself is a tool. The intention of the party using the tool is a part of the process right? You know: the knife cuts the steak stabs the person saves somebody from danger cuts somebody out of a car.

I don't want a flashy car just something that would allow me to stop using the Tube. And it would be good not to have to rely on my mum all the time particularly when I have to listen to her singing in her car.

Anything that's different from your own realm of experience as a human being whether it's driving a car or a boat or using guns anything that separates you from yourself and leads you more towards this character's existence is a big help.

I'm afraid for all those who'll have the bread snatched from their mouths by these machines. What business has science and capitalism got bringing all these new inventions into the works before society has produced a generation educated up to using them!

Living the past is a dull and lonely business looking back strains the neck muscles causing you to bump into people not going your way.

To me business isn't about wearing suits or pleasing stockholders. It's about being true to yourself your ideas and focusing on the essentials.