They wanted me to play more sports because they were acutely sensitive to their children being one hundred percent American and they believed that all Americans played sports and loved sports.

I was an All-American in wrestling in high school was National Champion in Chinese kickboxing in 1999 and have spent a lot of time around professional athletes which includes my eight-plus years as CEO of a sports nutrition company.

In America we have three major sports - baseball football and basketball. They get the most coverage. Then there's things like golf which mop up most of what is left. But track and field? We are way at the bottom of the totem pole.

I'm not that clued up on the American sports yet really.

Several professional athletes have wrongly taught many young Americans by example that the only way to succeed in sports is to take steroids.

For a while I was on the cover of every Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue which was regarded as the pinnacle of success in America.

I receive huge support from Irish and British sports fans alike and it is greatly appreciated. Likewise I feel I have a great affinity with the American sports fans. I play most of my golf in the U.S. nowadays and I am incredibly proud to have won the U.S. Open and U.S. PGA Championship in the last two years.

I keep getting these extraordinary letteres really weird ones from American sports stars - I've always thought you were one pretty lady and now that you're single I want to meet you for a drink.

Americans' addiction to sports with the NFL at the top is based on the excitement generated by the potential for the unexpected great play which can only happen with honest competition from great athletes.

There's a whole lot more to the African-American community than entertainment and sports.

The American people are sheep. They're comfortable rich working. It's like the Romans they're happy with bread and their spectator sports. The Super Bowl means more to them than any right.

Boxing has become America's tragic theater.

Golf is played by twenty million mature American men whose wives think they are out having fun.

Well you got to remember bin Laden killed 3 000 Americans and in some ways he and his ideology killed tens of thousands of his fellow Muslims including Pakistanis. I understand that that was provocative and complicated for Pakistan but only if you accept the idea that he was an acceptable member of Pakistani society.

I think that when we have a better educated society when there is less violence in our cities when people get back into the workforce and have the opportunity to take care of themselves and their families - that for me really is the kind of success and the kind of America that I think most of us still want we aspire to.

America must be the teacher of democracy not the advertiser of the consumer society. It is unrealistic for the rest of the world to reach the American living standard.

The Constitution as originally drawn made no reference to the fact that all Americans wre considered equal members of society.

Then I realized that there is an indigenous presence in the Solar System. It's us. So then I got to wondering what would happen if a more technologically advanced society moved next door to us the way we moved next door to the American Indians.

Remember and help America remember that the fellowship of human beings is more important than the fellowship of race and class and gender in a democratic society.

I understand why society especially American society is gravitating toward fairy tales given our economy. We've been exploring the world of witches and wizards for years. We've been exploring the world of vampires for years. Clearly the public - I mean I feel like all of this was ushered in by 'Harry Potter' - in my own fannish beliefs.

When I got out of acting school I was lucky to have gotten any job at all. A lot of people hiring African American actresses - it was right after 'Roots ' and for society not me it was great. Nice richly dark-skinned people was the fashion and I was not.

At one of the annual conventions of the American Society for Aesthetics much confusion arose when the Society for Anesthetics met at the same time in the same hotel.

The belief that the good in American society will finally win out... I don't believe any more.

Since I have come to America I am often asked whether my next novel will be set in America. I don't think it will. I think I will be living in America for some time to come but while living in America I would like to write about Japanese society from the outside.