From me growing up with a large family and everybody singing around the Christmas tree, it was a wonderful, wonderful upbringing.

Naughtiness is a part of growing up. It starts when you're a toddler and never ends.

La Marseillaise' sounds best ringing around a packed sports stadium. Its lyrics evoke revolution, conflict, taking up arms, preparing for the fight - everything my music does not! Even in our largely peaceful times, it retains its rousing, martial air that gives it a power that hasn't diminished.

I know I haven't spent a lot of time with my children because my job takes me all over the world and takes me away from my children, but I've given them a good education and security. If anything happens to me, my children's future is well-secured. So I think I've done well as a father.

I intend to leave after my death a large fund for the promotion of the peace idea, but I am skeptical as to its results.

My mother smokes me out. We'll get these long periods of me thinking I'm too busy to call her up or e-mail her, and she'll send me something. My mom's a real whiner. I love her to death, but she always sends me these 'woe is me' things. I think she might be Jewish. I'm not sure. She's Baptist-Jewish, which is a double whammy.

A country that relies on aid? Death is better than that. It stops you from achieving your potential, just as colonialism did.

Nothing is a matter of life and death except life and death.