I've always loved music but I never really played anything. After 'Walk the Line' and learning to play guitar and having that sense of performing I think that certainly opened the door for me for music.

No Child Left Behind's fourth-grade gains aren't learning gains they're testing gains. That's why they don't last. The law is a distraction from things that really count.

It's really difficult for me. Language I am sorry that I haven't. I think I just always expected that you learn a word in place of a word and when I discovered how difficult the grammar was and learning that was very discouraging for me.

The role of the musician is to go from concept to full execution. Put another way it's to go from understanding the content of something to really learning how to communicate it and make sure it's well-received and lives in somebody else.

In terms of doing work and in terms of learning and evolving as a person you just grow more when you get more people's perspectives... I really try and live the mission of the company and... keep everything else in my life extremely simple.

I got problems. I freak out go to a shrink go through all kinds of therapy and stuff but I'm learning how to deal with it. That's why I've chosen one hour a night to get all of my aggressions out. to really tell the world the way I feel.

Human beings are accustomed to think of intellect as the power of having and controlling ideas and of ability to learn as synonymous with ability to have ideas. But learning by having ideas is really one of the rare and isolated events in nature.

I started practicing yoga. I started learning some hands-on healing stuff. And I found really good chiropractors really good massage therapists and what I found is I've been able to actually peel off layers of trauma on my body and actually move better now than I did.

I'd like to be more patient! I just want everything now. I've tried to meditate but it's really hard for me to stay still. I'd like to try to force myself to do it because everybody says how wonderful meditation is for you but I can't shut my mind up. So patience and learning is the key.

Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children play is serious learning. Play is really the work of childhood.

House Republican leadership have refused to allow a clean minimum wage vote. Close to 15 million Americans will be affected if we did this. Do Republicans really expect a family to live on less than $11 000 a year?

The fact is five months ago this was an issue that people weren't really talking that much about. Because of the president's leadership because he's brought it to people's attention it's now a top issue.

Music is all about leadership and there ain't really a lot of leaders.

But I think Steve's main contribution besides just the pure leadership is his passion for excellence. He's a perfectionist. Good enough isn't good enough. And also his creative spirit. You know he really really wants to do something great.

What I've really learned over time is that optimism is a very very important part of leadership.

And I'd say one of the great lessons I've learned over the past couple of decades from a management perspective is that really when you come down to it it really is all about people and all about leadership.

I think Chinese leadership is trying to tell the world they have another set of logic or reasoning or values which are different from yours. Of course I don't think they believe that. It's just an argument that's made when you can't confront the truth and facts. They really want to maintain power.

It's really necessary for the United States to continue to give strong leadership to the Middle East peace process supported by European countries at the same time.

Leadership cannot really be taught. It can only be learned.

Darrell is really good in the studio. I mean he has a real working knowledge of how the process works and what sounds good coming back over tape and how the stuff works together.

It's hard for women to talk about these things and for the doctors to really talk about it too and to even have the knowledge of what's going on. That's why I'm doing this and urging women to speak out and talk to their doctors frankly.

But I think it's great to be able to work with established directors and then also first-timers. I feel like you learn from both of them but then you can go and share your knowledge with each of them. That's really fantastic!

The whole Twitter phenomenon is really indicative of what's happening in this country. And I say this in condemnation of myself as much as anyone else - we are growing into a nation that has no time desire or capacity for truth. All we can handle is 140 characters of knowledge.

But in the name of the experimental method and out of our poor knowledge are we really entitled to claim that everything happens by chance to the exclusion of all other possibilities?