I think Amy is a really difficult example. With any artist, none of us understands what it's like having the world's media scrutinising everything you do.

My parents explained: "You can either have a big Christmas and birthday present or we'll go abroad." We'd say: "Let's go abroad!" We had a lovely childhood.

I've always paid off my mortgage as much as I could.

People think I get this free wardrobe but, sadly, that's not the case. I sometimes sell my unwanted clothes and shoes at car-boots so I can buy more - that's my guilty secret.

If you get up every morning and smile, it's a good place to be.

I applied for three jobs in record companies and was offered all of them. I took the most glamorous-sounding job in the promotions department and it began my love affair with the music industry.

While waiting for my visa, I got a job in the music industry, which was so exciting, it changed my life and stopped me moving.

Thirty-nine was the best year of my life earnings-wise. I paid off my mortgage and felt a massive sense of achievement.

Drawing is rather like playing chess: your mind races ahead of the moves that you eventually make.

No one is an overachiever. How can you rise above your level of competency? Everyone is an underachiever to different degrees. The harder you work, the more luck you will have.

The older I get, the more I embrace who I am.

Acceptance of the power of God in one's life lays the groundwork for personal commitment to both science and Christianity, which so often have been in conflict.

Jokes do finish themselves. I really do see them as ongoing conversations about personal themes that I ruminate on.

always either on a peak of happiness or drowning in black waters of despair they loved or they loathed, they lived in a world of superlatives

A passport picture is a photo of a man that he can laugh at without realizing that it looks exactly the way his friends see him.

Go now. Our journey is done. And may we meet again, in the clearing, at the end of the path.

Separation before elevation. You have to let some people and things go so you can go to the next level.

My daughter is my greatest inspiration.