Don't despair too much if you see beautiful things destroyed, if you see them perish. Because the best things are always growing in secret.

I'm conscious of a series of circles working its way through my life. And at this particular moment I have come round to the beginning of my writing cycle. It begins with poetry. There's hardly a day that goes past on which I don't write poetry.

The strange thing about Africa is how past, present and future come together in a kind of rough jazz, if you like.

The acknowledged legislators of the world take the world as given. They dislike mysteries, for mysteries cannot be coded, or legislated, and wonder cannot be made into law. And so these legislators police the accepted frontiers of things.

I have always been fascinated by the way music can completely change the way you watch film - and how you feel as you watch the images.

I stay away from the arts... writing songs, being creative - those are downloads from God. You can't do data analytics on art.

The moral case for individual initiative in a free economy holds that people have a God-given right to use their creativity to produce things that improve our lives.

My biggest dream from the beginning - besides Evanescence - is scoring film and writing music for film.