Every successful businessman will have experienced set-backs and failures - they're lying if they say they haven't. Virgin has had some tremendously successful businesses and some that have not quite worked out. Virgin Cola springs to mind - the product wasn't distinct enough from Coca-Cola.
Cover versions, that's my forte, that's all I ever used to do. When you play your own songs, it's quite scary, 'cause I'm quite honest and open, they can be very revealing. But covers, I don't have to think about, just get me up there!
I grew up in a culture of motorbikes. So I like racing just fine. Quite a lot, actually. That was when I was a boy in Australia. And I never really made the jump to cars after that.
When I finally finished the 'Two Suns' tour, which went on for quite a long time, I felt like a bit of a husk. And I remember thinking, 'I need to spend some time in one place, and just be at home.' So I guess the first year of that three and a half years was spent just trying to kind of get back to normal again.
My life is really quite conservative. I've been married nearly 50 years. I don't have hobbies or children. I don't much care to travel. I've never had a big social life. I really just stay home, except when I go to work.
I'm used to shifting languages because my father used to speak to us, to my brother and I, he used to speak in English. He wanted us to be quite fluent in English, especially when he was trying to correct our behavior; he would do that in English.
In some ways I'm a frustrated scientist or mathematician. The amount of times I've thought I'd go back to university and do theoretical physics because I like the big questions, but really I know now that that's not quite me. What's me is to do it in novels.
Every business I don't know, if I spend enough time - a couple of months - I will know a lot. I know quite a lot about football now. I know the value of players, and we won't do stupid things.
I know I'm very lucky. A lot of it is quite normal, scooting around the supermarket with a shopping trolley and things like that. With one parent being a prince and the other being an amazing sort of... business woman.
If you're going to try to win an election, you can't be 80 percent. You can't say, I'm for what my Democratic opponent is, for but not quite so much of it.
Nothing inspires forgiveness quite like revenge.
In the early days, I had very little idea about arrangements, and I wrote songs a little flat, as it were, just on an acoustic guitar. They didn't really have quite enough nuance.
I know that Philadelphians hate New York actors passing off New York accents as Philadelphian when they are quite different.
The way we experience history and time in all its forms shifted quite massively between 1989 and 2001 - to the point where contrivances like decades are now kind of silly.
Something is missing in our culture. We can't quite celebrate the scientific literary tradition.
I had grown up as an Irish poet in a country where the distance between vision and imagination was not quite as wide as in some other countries.
We had this unbelievable faith that no business has done, quite frankly, and we tripped along the way doing it, but within two years, we were in 40-plus countries. So we ran at an amazing pace, and this is where venture capitalists play a role. Making Groupon into what it is today, we had no role in it; the entrepreneurs did it.
I found popularity through self-destruction, and that can be quite addictive.
I think the rigors of a TV schedule are brutal and 'Six Feet Under' wasn't a network schedule. We did 13 shows, we didn't do 22. I don't know how people do that. I really don't. I mean the shows are shorter, but wow, it's quite a discipline.
I'm quite into the idea of engineering being beautiful.
Like so many Boomers, I saw 'Lawrence of Arabia' in 1962 when it was first released and when we were young teenagers. I'm not quite sure why - I really wish some psychologist would explain this - but that movie had a tremendous effect on many of us.
Led Zeppelin isn't done yet, quite clearly, because every year since 1968 there's been new fans.
You have to do stand-up quite a long time before you learn how to do it well.
The irony is that we're really good at comedy in Britain, but for some reason, we make very few comedy films. And when we do, they're either quite American in style, or very Richard Curtis. And I like Richard Curtis, but I think only Richard Curtis should write Richard Curtis films, and other people should try and find their own style.
'Ape House' is an ambitious novel in several ways, for which it is to be admired, and it is certainly an easy read, but because Gruen is not quite prepared for the philosophical implications of her subject, it is not as deeply involving emotionally or as interesting thematically as it could be.
I don't think it's different to be a black girl in England than it is to be a black girl from America. We all collectively share in a pain of displacement and not feeling like we quite belong in places.
My dad had a personal style which was very attractive. It was quite reserved and quite elegant, and it was infectious.
I think my father is nearly perfect. I think he's quite handsome, except a bit fat.
There are different usage patterns - I never do email during the day. I don't multitask well at all. I don't know how to be in a meeting and participate and be on email at the same time. I do see some people do it more effectively. I've never quite figured that out.
I know people who have, until recently, lived with dirt floors. There are people who live way back off the grid, without electricity. Not a whole lot, but quite a few. That's a choice for a lot of them. There might be a religious element in their isolation, at least with some of them.
Writing a song is actually quite easy. Writing a good one is very, very difficult.
I'm always meeting new people, and my list of friends seems to change quite a bit.
At the heart of the best documentaries, there is a journey of inquiry - someone who travels out into the world, comes back with a story, and who then finds meaning in it, and intrigue; someone who tells you about something you never quite knew before, or in a way you hadn't quite thought about.
In some Old Testament books, it's very evident that an editor has been at work. That's quite all right. It's part of the process.
In many countries, women aren't jubilant when they learn they are pregnant. Quite the opposite - they're terrified.
What has 'The Patchwork Girl of Oz' got in its favor? Quite a lot, from our point of view in 2009. If you want to see how Oz's creator envisioned his own work, here it is.
