Ragtime has about the same amount of respect as comics. And in a way they're similar art forms. Ragtime is highly compositional and the emotion in the music is built in whereas in jazz a lot of that emotion comes from the way it's performed.

In order to gain the respect of your players in the locker room you can't just perform on Saturday. You have to do it consistently during practices meetings and in the weight room.

Bad acting comes in many bags various odors. It can be performed by cardboard refugees from an Ed Wood movie reciting their dialogue off an eye chart or by hopped-up pros looking to punch a hole through the fourth wall from pure ballistic force of personality like Joe Pesci in a bad mood. I can respect bad acting that owns its own style.

More than in any other performing arts the lack of respect for acting seems to spring from the fact that every layman considers himself a valid critic.

Difference of opinion is advantageous in religion. The several sects perform the office of a Censor - over each other.

Royalties are not how most writers or musicians make their living. Musicians by and large make a living with a relationship with an audience that is economically harnessed through performance and ticket sales.

Until we have a better relationship between private performance and the public truth as was demonstrated with Watergate we as the public are absolutely right to remain suspicious contemptuous even of the secrecy and the misinformation which is the digest of our news.

To use the power of the bison I had to perform that part of my vision for the people to see.

I think I have told you but if I have not you must have understood that a man who has a vision is not able to use the power of it until after he has performed the vision on earth for the people to see.

Women were freed from positive duties when they could not perform them but not when they could.

And what we've lost sight of is that performing manual labor with your hands is one of the most incredibly satisfying and positive things you can do.

Free speech is not to be regulated like diseased cattle and impure butter. The audience that hissed yesterday may applaud today even for the same performance.

If I do a poetry reading I want people to walk out and say they feel better for having been there - not because you've done a comedy performance but because you're talking about your father dying or having young children things that touch your soul.

I'm hopefully touring with Colin Baker next year in Perfect Strangers. I have performed with Sylvia Simms in poetry and music evenings. I would love to do those for the rest of my career - they are so fun and witty.

Written poetry is different. Best thing is to see it in performance first then read it. Performance is more provocative.

And my father was a comic. He could play any musical instrument. He loved to perform. He was a wonderfully comedic character. He had the ability to dance and sing and charm and analyze poetry.

Pet me touch me love me that's what I get when I perform. That's when I'm really getting what I want.

Bob Marley performed the 'One Love Peace' concert in Jamaica with the two different warring political sides. There's always been that in black music and culture in general. It's no surprise because black music is such a reflection of what's going on in black life. It's not unusual for hip-hop.

The mobilisation which Bush has been able to perform since 11 September 2001 has to be fought - at least by Americans - in the name of a wise honourable and democratic patriotism.

I think most artists create out of despair. The very nature of creation is not a performing glory on the outside it's a painful difficult search within.

Quantum computation is... a distinctively new way of harnessing nature... It will be the first technology that allows useful tasks to be performed in collaboration between parallel universes.

It is better to do one's own duty however defective it may be than to follow the duty of another however well one may perform it. He who does his duty as his own nature reveals it never sins.

Pop stardom is not very compelling. I'm much more interested in a relationship between performer and audience that is of equals. I came up through folk music and there's no pomp and circumstance to the performance. There's no like 'I'll be the rock star you be the adulating fan.'

Music never dies. Do we really need another Madonna tour? Does she have to compete with women performers 25 years her junior?