Umm... I don't judge my relationship with Puff or Bad Boy according to other people or past artists. At the end of the day, you are in charge of your career, and you can't depend on no man to do anything for you. I've learned to judge relationships with a person on myself and that person, not what they have done with previous people.

The relationship between the public and the artist is complex and difficult to explain. There is a fine line between using this critical energy creatively and pandering to it.

The cinema began with a passionate, physical relationship between celluloid and the artists and craftsmen and technicians who handled it, manipulated it, and came to know it the way a lover comes to know every inch of the body of the beloved. No matter where the cinema goes, we cannot afford to lose sight of its beginnings.

Music is more emotional than prose, more revolutionary than poetry. I'm not saying I've got the answers, just a of questions that I don't hear other artists asking.

I found poetry at 12 and 13 and, lo and behold, learned that my attorney father had a background in poetry - as he wore dashikis and Afros in the '70s and named his kids Arabic names. He was a poet and a lot like The Last Poets and Gil Scott-Heron and all of these folks. He definitely was an artist.

But every great scripture, whether Hebrew, Indian, Persian, or Chinese, apart from its religious value will be found to have some rare and special beauty of its own; and in this respect the original Bible stands very high as a monument of sublime poetry and of artistic prose.

History shows us that in times of people feeling like they are in need of some sort of rebellion or protests, the artists rise because the poetry we create about pain and its relationship to culture in the world begins to soothe and heal people who are feeling confused or afraid.

Definitely, some of the artistry and poetry has been lost in modern chess. It's very rare that I play a game where I'm like, 'Wow, this is really interesting. There were so many possibilities! It was such a rich game.'

Poetry is the work of poets, not of peoples or communities; artistic creation can never be anything but the production of an individual mind.

It could be that all awful dictators are frustrated artists - Mao with his poetry and Mussolini with his monuments. Stalin was once a journalistic hack, and I can personally testify to how frustrated they are. Pol Pot left a very edgy photo collection behind. And Osama seems quite interested in video.

Nobody, I think, ought to read poetry, or look at pictures or statues, who cannot find a great deal more in them than the poet or artist has actually expressed. Their highest merit is suggestiveness.

My father is a visual artist, so I was influenced by him, and my mother is an English teacher who forced me to read a lot of books and poetry and get involved in theatre. I developed a varied taste for different arts.

We have a habit of turning to scientists when we want factual answers and artists when we want entertainment, but where are the facts about the nature of the self? Neurologists peering at PET scans and fMRIs know they aren't seeing the soul in there.

More and more, I think about the role of the arts, and as an artist, I think that it's important that I share the love and peace.

The practice of peace and reconciliation is one of the most vital and artistic of human actions.

Our stories come from our lives and from the playwright's pen, the mind of the actor, the roles we create, the artistry of life itself and the quest for peace.

One thing that I am becoming to learn is that you've got to have patience and wait your turn in this game. I feel like I am progressing as an artist, as a writer and as a performer and I know that there will be that one moment that will change everything.

Seeing all of these beautiful brown faces and having that patience for them to live in whatever it was that they were living in; I was just so blown away by the artistry that I recognized in 'Moonlight' - the colors, the music.

The industry has changed in that it is far more disposable than it used to be. When Boyzone came out, we were given a shot and the patience to record our singles and albums. Nowadays, the thought is if it is not working, then the artist will be dropped. The record companies will bail on the artists, and I find that sad.

I am a terrible chef; I'm not a good cook. I don't have the talent, the patience, the desire even to cook the way these great artists that I meet around the world cook, and I'm very, very happy to support them. I invest in restaurants because I love them so much.

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.

The biggest challenge, I think for any new artist, is patience.

Parenting advice is mostly useless because every family is uniquely its own; artistic advice is mostly useless because every artist works in their own way. Thus, figuring out how to balance the two has an intense specificity.

Do you want to be an artist and a writer, or a wife and a lover? With kids, your focus changes. I don't want to go to PTA meetings.