And actually about three weeks ago Micky Peter and I were in Vegas at the MGM Grand. And we did about 12 shows in seven days. It was quite an experience.

Music and language are a vital element. We as actors and directors offer it to people who want to experience it. Sometimes the actual meaning is less important than the words themselves.

I don't think any good book is based on factual experience. Bad books are about things the writer already knew before he wrote them.

Well I stopped drinking. That was actually a big deal. I didn't go through any harrowing rock-bottom experience. I just made a decision to stop drinking.

The experience gathered from books though often valuable is but the nature of learning whereas the experience gained from actual life is one of the nature of wisdom.

Actually music gave me the support when I needed it. I would never have gone to college unless I'd gotten a piano scholarship. And now I'm so glad I got to learn to play the cello which is a different experience you're flexing a different muscle but it's beautiful because it is music.

I find increasingly that the more extreme are the things going on in your life the more cultural reference points fail you. More mythical reference points actually help and you realise that's what myths are for. It's for human beings to process their experience in extremis.

As with real reading the ability to comprehend subtlety and complexity comes only with time and a lot of experience. If you don't adequately acquire those skills moving out into the real world of real people can actually become quite scary.

No matter how close to personal experience a story might be inevitably you are going to get to a part that isn't yours and actually whether it happened or not becomes irrelevant. It is all about choosing the right words.

Being an actor means asking people to look at you. I guess I accept that. But it's a profession in which the job is to show another world and other people. You may access it through bits of yourself and your imagination and experience but actually in the end you're not playing yourself.

There's probably no experience more alienating than fame other than a terminal illness where you actually find yourself in a situation that nobody around you can relate to.

Sometimes I get so bold and I'm so confident about what I'm doing that I actually try to be more of a dork because it's a really liberating feeling to experience what it's like to not care.

Parents it seems have an almost Olympian persistence when it comes to suggesting more secure and lucrative lines of work for their children who have the notion that writing is an actual profession. I say this from experience.

Sure I suffered a lot. But it's not like the end of the world and it's not who I am. I lead quite a pleasant life and I'm able to divorce a perceived reality from my actual experience of life.

The equality among all members of the League which is provided in the statutes giving each state only one vote cannot of course abolish the actual material inequality of the powers concerned.

Feminism is just about equality really and there's so much stuff attached to the word when it's actually so simple. I don't know why it's always so bogged down.

The people in Iraq lived essentially good lives. They had brilliant health and education systems. Saddam actually created an incredible infrastructure in a very difficult country but they were a Mafia family. If you said anything against that regime or that family you would be killed instantly.

And I'm very surprised that all this stuff actually worked out to where I could have a career in film gain the benefit of my education and be thankful that I was able to break into my craft as an actor.

The question is will we continue to fight what may be a rearguard action to defend universal literacy as a central goal of our education system or are we bold enough to see what's actually happening to our culture?

I made education the highest priority of my campaign - actually education and jobs - and the reason is a simple one: I think the future of America depends on it.

The older I grow the more I see the influence of my family on my life. I didn't always see it. It was up to our parents to see that we had our education in a town that hadn't yet realized what racial prejudice was but actually knew and practiced it on occasion.

The more that learn to read the less learn how to make a living. That's one thing about a little education. It spoils you for actual work. The more you know the more you think somebody owes you a living.

I grew up with not a lot of money and I definitely shopped at Goodwill. But even in my most unfortunate state I was really blessed compared to a lot of the rest of the world. I had a really great chance to follow my dreams and have them actually come true.

I have actual dreams of Bruce Springsteen calling me up on stage to wear a bandanna and play rhythm guitar next to Little Steven.