"Making a Christmas album is looked upon by some people as the thing you do when you are heading towards retirement."

"I want to branch out. I want to write. I write poetry. I want to see my children grow up well."

"I can't understand why the front pages of newspapers can cover bird flu and swine flu and everybody is up in arms about that and we still haven't really woken up to the fact that so many women in sub-Saharan Africa - 60 percent of people in - infected with HIV are women."

"I don't have clear-cut positions. I get baffled by things. I have viewpoints. Sometimes they change."

"Religious people often prefer to be right rather than compassionate. Often, they don't want to give up their egotism. They want their religion to endorse their ego, their identity."

"Truth forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the throne."

"Time is the most impartial judge; it reveals all pretenses and rewards all patience. Reflect upon this whenever doubt clouds your horizon."

"Stand firm when justice demands it, even if you stand entirely alone. Remember this in moments of decisive trial."