Every now and then I have blissful moments of thanking God for all the amazing things that are happening. When I leave the White House after just meeting Obama or when I see my face on the cover of 'Rolling Stone' or when I meet someone who tells me that their daughter is inspired by me those are moments that are incredibly joyful.

We watch a lot of Discovery Channel shows like 'The Biggest Loser' and even 'Amazing Race.' You learn a lot about the world it's fun and nobody's interested in beating anybody down. And then the opposite: I'm a huge fan of 'Survivor.'

I mean why am I considered an 'it girl?' Because I'm in a lot of movies right now or am on the covers of magazines? I just hope there is something solid behind that. Because here's the thing with 'it girl' status. It's great and amazing that anybody is saying that at all. But how long does that last?

Well I was already so happy being chosen to do the issue itself that when I got on the cover it was even more of a surprise and even more amazing to me.

For every five well-adjusted and smoothly functioning Americans there are two who never had the chance to discover themselves. It may well be because they have never been alone with themselves.

Young people discovering their sexuality must know they walk with a strong tradition and that they are not alone. They have a right to information without being pressured.

What a lovely surprise to finally discover how unlonely being alone can be.

These days too many of us seem inclined to cover our ears close our eyes and blindly follow the most narrow conservative tenets of religion or else seek comfort in the ancient traditions of New Age ritual.

I am rediscovering the whole sexual dimension of life at the age of 86 really. And that also means discovering the feminine. So the whole of this dimension which I had been seeking for a very long time is now sort of opening itself up to me.

You can have a spiritual awakening and discover a new side of you at any age. And best of all love can happen at any age. Life can just start to get exciting when you're in your 40s and 50s. You have to believe that.

At its best our age is an age of searchers and discoverers and at its worst an age that has domesticated despair and learned to live with it happily.

My sister and I shared a bedroom our entire lives and I believe she discovered the Beatles when she was about 11 and I'm four years younger. So from the age of 7 until 17 we had nothing but Beatles paraphernalia in our room even those little stuffed Beatles that went on stands that are dressed as the Sgt. Pepper band.

Young man the secret of my success is that an early age I discovered that I was not God.

You'd think that in this age especially in the 21st century - especially with all the technology and all the discoveries that we've made - that we would figure out how to tackle abuse.

I'm well past the age where I'm acceptable. You get to a certain age and you are forbidden access. You're not going to get the kind of coverage that you would like in music magazines you're not going to get played on radio and you're not going to get played on television. I have to survive on word of mouth.

In my youth I stressed freedom and in my old age I stress order. I have made the great discovery that liberty is a product of order.

It were a real increase of human happiness could all young men from the age of nineteen be covered under barrels or rendered otherwise invisible and there left to follow their lawful studies and callings till they emerged sadder and wiser at the age of twenty-five.

Books were my pass to personal freedom. I learned to read at age three and soon discovered there was a whole world to conquer that went beyond our farm in Mississippi.

True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country.