With the United States in slow long-term decline, how will that affect the position of English? And where will all that leave monolingual Britain? Our political leaders like to boast about how global Britain is, but when it comes to languages, it is near the bottom of the global league, together with another island state, Japan.
Where most of the country is, well, hot - from the bone-baking dry heat of the desert to the flesh-melting humidity of Kerala in the south - Kashmir is cool: so cool, in fact, that in the winter, the temperatures can sink to sub-zero.
The tech-driven economy leads to a two-tier job market where workers are either critical or 'commodity.' This divisive 'winner-take-all' mentality hurts most Americans and worsens economic inequality.
If I could find a way to make a film that takes you into the mind of a fighter, where you have 36 minutes of combat with so many different emotions, so many highs and lows, so many obstacles to overcome, I'd do that.
Due to the failure of politics, which has become a process of middle-management, art has become one of the last open spaces to question core beliefs and to design a viable future. Art becomes an open space where we can ask fundamental questions about ourselves.
I want to bring magic back to where it started, which is not about the props, and it's not about me as a magician: it's about the audience and playing with their minds and playing with their perception of magic and having fun with it.
When we used to go to the car-wash where people would wipe the windows, my dad would go out and help them and then tip them as well, so I learned my empathy from my dad, and my mum is very empathetic too, but in a very stern way; she will always check my ego.
When it's a sharing and improvisational meeting, where you're riffing off other people's ideas, that actually can be productive.
I kept saying that I'd never live in L.A., and I didn't think I would. But that's where the work is, and I ended up making a lot of friends there, and my old friends moved out to Los Angeles too. And also, I think when you're famous, its hard to live in a small town.
There are nations, where people live in captivity, fear and silence. I believe, one day from prison camps and torture cells and from exile the leaders of freedom will emerge. The world should stand with those oppressed people until the day of their freedom finally arrives.
Let's think about where things stood in December 2015. By that time, Republicans had already had such epic and long-standing struggles with young people that I'd written a whole book about it. Additionally, Republicans had already had a bruising start to their primary season.
With soldiers, their wives are so fundamental in their relationships, and yet there's this kind of other war happening back in the States, where wives of soldiers don't quite understand what their husbands have been through, because their husbands won't really talk about it, and that's really the hidden war.
Social situations, for me - it's very natural for me to be an observer. That's where I'm most comfortable. I observe things.
For me, I worked so hard to get to where I am and I don't ever want to lose sight of being grounded.
My place in Chicago is a 105 year old house, but I really like contemporary spaces too, so it's refreshing and fun to be in a space where you can do contemporary things.
We are all racing towards death. No matter how many great, intellectual conclusions we draw during our lives, we know they're all only man-made, like God. I begin to wonder where it all leads. What can you do, except do what you can do as best you know how.
When I was a kid, my father brought home the autobiography of Sid Luckman, the great Chicago Bears quarterback - probably an extra copy from the sports department where he worked. It was the first sports biography I ever read.
Being on a successful television show is a good thing. It's steady work. It's a chance to work with a group of people in an intimate way... where you develop a sort of shorthand with each other, and a trust.
I'm tired of this party stuff, where we're going to do what's right for this party, or we're going to do what's right for that party. Let's just get together and do what's right for the country. I think that's what all of us want.
The stones in your driveway may have come from the slaves who spend all day breaking rocks because it's cheaper for the company to get them from India, where the labor is free. We are all connected. And we all have human value. That's what my work is about.
It was the Cosby family on the cover, but overlaid on that, it appeared to be a shattered glass. So it really wasn't just about the shattering of the Huxtables: it was really a shattering of the black family. And it was a question about that and where do we stand on that.
I love to have no plans. It is amazing where your day can turn when you have no plans: meeting people or just going to a little pub on the side of the road.
I like to focus on making the music sound simple and true, and very lush and full. I think music should take you to somewhere else where you have the space to contemplate or exercise your imagination. All the while you should be feeling real good, like when you have a delicious and decadent meal, macaroni and cheese or foie gras.
The problem with holistic management is it's so profoundly simple, but it's not easy. And it's profoundly simple. You're almost insulting people's intelligence to explain it twice, just about making better decisions of where you want to go in your life, bringing in environmental, social, economic issues simultaneously.
Most Scots might be able to identify six vegetables - but only two MSPs. There are parts of Scotland where you rarely get more than 40% turnout at the polls. There's a big disconnect there, and I think comedians bridge that gap.
It was fun playing a horrible, snotty kid in 'Harry Potter', and then playing Prince Charming where I was also singing and playing guitar, and then playing a completely different character.
I remember doing a little student film where we had a guy that couldn't pull focus. We ended up spending three times the amount of time shooting this thing as opposed to if the guy could've just pulled focus.
My dad left when I was a little boy and I grew up with my mother's family. There were foundations in the U.S. where Jewish people got together and sent money to Cuba, so we got some of that. We were a poor family, but I was always a happy kid.
I never eat where the hotel recommends. I do my own research and then try the most highly rated options.
I think Detroit is where muscle meets brains.
There was a time before I felt I was a real writer, when I was a yarn spinner and I just wanted to tell story until it was over. But then there came a time where I was like, 'No, I want to understand something through writing this that I might have not understood before. I want people to come away with something to think about.'
Where we see corruption and can make a case against it, we're being aggressive.
Sometimes you hate villains, but you love that you hate them, and it finds this happy medium where you enjoy the process of loathing them so much that you want them to be there. It's such a weird, twisted thing that our minds do.
The sense of not knowing where I came from let me be as smart as I wanted to be.
I just feel like every kid is growing up too fast and they're seeing too much. Everything is about sex, and that's fine for me. I'm not saying I don't like it. But I don't think it should be everywhere, where kids are exposed to everything sexual. Because they have to have some innocence; there's just no innocence left.
Unlike most divorces, where the children were usually the first to know, my parents were very good about keeping that a secret.
