I am President of the UN created University for Peace which has a strong commitment to the relationship between peace security and the environment. I meet with young people around the world and I always come away enthused and encouraged.

When you're young you think that you're going to sail into a lovely lake of quietude and peace. This is profoundly untrue.

As a young boy I read 'Cheaper by the Dozen' and immediately became neurotic about my use of time. It taxed me severely but only for the next 50 years. But I think it also allowed me to discipline myself to sit in the chair and be a writer where one of the most needed qualities is patience.

It seems likely that many of the young who don't wait for others to call them artists but simply announce that they are don't have the patience to make art.

A show that no one thought had a chance has just finished its fifth year: Charmed. I think it's tougher for the younger networks so I think they have a little more patience for the sake of the show. But who knows?

How can a society that exists on instant mashed potatoes packaged cake mixes frozen dinners and instant cameras teach patience to its young?

It's human nature to be curious about people and to be more curious about young people than old people. We want to cheer something on at the same time we want to tear it down. That's just so normal.

To make a love story you need a couple of young people but to reflect on the nature of love you're better off with old ones. That is a fact of life and literature - and of the novel ever since it fell in love with love in the 18th century.

As parents grandparents uncles and aunts we need to start getting out into nature with the young people in our lives. Families play a key role in getting kids outside.

I attribute the quarrelsome nature of the Middle Ages young men entirely to the want of the soothing weed.

I pity the young woman who will attempt to insinuate herself between my mama's boy and me. I sympathize with the monumental nature of her task. It will take a crowbar two bulldozers and half a dozen Molotov cocktails to pry my Oedipus and me loose from one another.

Human nature is so well disposed towards those who are in interesting situations that a young person who either marries or dies is sure of being kindly spoken of.

What I was going for in the first two albums I didn't necessarily achieve. Because I was young and because it was my first time out. And the second album was such a 'quickie' sort of 'Let's just get it over with!' But the kind of music I make there's a lot of subtlety in it. And I think it takes a couple of listens to actually really get it.

The earth has grown old with its burden of care but at Christmas it always is young the heart of the jewel burns lustrous and fair and its soul full of music breaks the air when the song of angels is sung.

It is essential to do everything possible to attract young people to opera so they can see that it is not some antiquated art form but a repository of the most glorious music and drama that man has created.

It is odd there are many movies with many men. But generally movies have one woman or maybe the older woman and the younger girl.

Skinniness is not your friend when you're over 40. I'd like to gain a good 10 pounds but I did always have a fat round face that plagued me when I was young. When I started to make movies I couldn't look at myself.

I don't watch the movies I make so I haven't seen 'Footloose' since it came out. You see this young hungry actor it's pretty fun. I was the only one they screen tested. It was an attempt by the director and producer to talk the head of the studio into hiring me because they didn't want me.

One of the reasons why people - particularly young people - love action movies is because what they are really looking for is justice.

I was influenced when I was younger by the cartoon movies that Disney put out like Cinderella and what not. I watched those movies over and over when I was younger and the music is ingrained into my head. Nowadays I'm still humming the tunes. It taught me the fundamentals.

Even if we die at 100 we're still dying young. I want at least 700 years. There's a lot of travelling and books to read and movies to see. I'm not going to squeeze it all in in 85 years.

Movies can and do have tremendous influence in shaping young lives in the realm of entertainment towards the ideals and objectives of normal adulthood.

I remember being at school during morning meeting and looking around at everybody 350 kids saying a prayer. We're all very young and no one knows what it means and I remember feeling strange that people were just repeating words that they didn't understand. I refused to participate. For some reason I always rejected it but respectfully.

I'll get up in the morning while they've all got hangovers and run my 5 miles. But the women who do run are usually 10 years younger than me and they're really obsessed about running. That's all they do. They're really boring.