In the modern media age we are rarely surprised by what we see. Whether it's on television or film or in the theatre everything is so advertised so trailed that most entertainment is merely what you thought it was going to be like.

My grandparents got married at a very young age and a lot of what I think about marriage is based on their relationship. I watched them over the years and saw how they dealt with everything together as a team.

I grew up on a farm in a small town where you do or say one thing and everybody knows about it. You see it happen there's always the town gossip - 'Oh did you hear about so and so or did you hear what went on in this household?' So I learned at a very young age just to keep my mouth shut.

We can no longer waste time and money. Every day more than 2 000 girls in America age 15-19 give birth - in the wealthiest most educated nation in the world! Neither you nor I should accept this statistic.

When I write about a 15-year old I jump I return to the days when I was that age. It's like a time machine. I can remember everything. I can feel the wind. I can smell the air. Very actually. Very vividly.

At my age the only problem is with remembering names. When I call everyone darling it has damn all to do with passionately adoring them but I know I'm safe calling them that. Although of course I adore them too.

I could always sing from a really young age but my voice was really weird. I used to make my mum turn up the radio every day in our house. She was well into music so I got that from her.

American Idol transcends age gender ethnicity everything.

The reason for the slow progress of the world seems to lie in a single fact. Every man is born under the yoke and grows up beneath the oppressions of his age.

The reason for the sadness of this modern age and the men who live in it is that it looks for the truth in everything and finds it.

With the song 'This Christmas' I wanted to do something that was kind of different. I mean Donny Hathaway is an amazing artist. So I wanted to bring my flavor to the song so when people over the age of 45 or 50 hear it they'll be like 'OK he did his thing with that record.' It's like I can appeal to everybody and not just a younger demographic.

Every age develops its own peculiar forms of pathology which express in exaggerated form its underlying character structure.

There's also some element of coming of age during the Reagan administration which everybody has painted as some glorious time in America but I remember as being a very very dark time. There was apocalypse in the air the punk rock movement made sense.

I really think we should pass a law in every state I don't care whether it takes the independence away from an old person or not. You shouldn't be driving a car if you're over the age of 80. Maybe even less than that.

In every age there has been a stream of popular opinion that has carried all before it and given a family character as it were to the century.

'Dallas' hit a chord back in the late Seventies and Eighties because it was the age of greed: here you have this unapologetic character who is mean and nasty and ruthless and does it all with an evil grin. I think people related to JR back then because we all have someone we know exactly like him. Everyone in the world knows a JR.

Everyone talks about age but it's not about age. It's about work ethic. Winning never gets old.

Every age yearns for a more beautiful world. The deeper the desperation and the depression about the confusing present the more intense that yearning.

Every time I see something terrible it's like I see it at age 19. I keep a freshness that way.

The funniest racism is the racism between minorities. It's something you don't see dramatized but almost every minority I know who's my age they have these funny stories about their parents stereotyping other minorities.

Every age needs men who will redeem the time by living with a vision of the things that are to be.

Genius is present in every age but the men carrying it within them remain benumbed unless extraordinary events occur to heat up and melt the mass so that it flows forth.

Middle age is when you've met so many people that every new person you meet reminds you of someone else.

Everybody looks like clones and the only people you notice are my age. I don't notice anybody unless they look great and every now and again they do and they are usually 70.