The future of democracy depends on its ability to adapt to new challenges and to renew itself.

I wanted to sell a million records, and I sold a million records. I wanted to go platinum; I went platinum. I've been working nonstop since I was 15. I don't even know how to chill out.

一个好的悬疑故事就像一个好的笑话——关键在于时机。

"Memory is a strange thing. It doesn’t work like I thought it did. We don’t remember, we rewrite memory much as history is rewritten. To remember is to remake, to reimagine."

Is there any relief from some of thesepressures that I've been outlining? I think there is. I just want to turn to afew of them. Let's take meritocracy. This idea that everybody deserves to getwhere they get to, I think it's a crazy idea, completely crazy. I will support any politician of Left and Right, with any halfway-decent meritocratic idea; I am a meritocrat in that sense. But I think it's insane to believe that we will ever make a society that is genuinely meritocratic; it's an impossible dream.