I don't regard myself as a soloist. It's a color; I put it in for excitement. It's not great loss if a solo has to go. We've made songs without solos.
When I was so fatigued that I couldn't move, the excitement of going to the barn and getting my foot in the stirrup would make me crawl out of bed.
Being on a book tour is like being on the seesaw when you're a little kid. The excitement is in having someone to play with, and in rising up in the air, but then you're at the mercy of those holding you down, and if it's your older brother, or Paul Wolfowitz, they leap up, so that you crash down and get hurt.
If you have a great day at work and you've been hit with all these great ideas and there's a lot of excitement on your team, your mind doesn't turn off. For years I've kept a pad of paper and pen by me at night, because things just occur to you.
There is a charm in making a stew, to the unaccustomed cook, from the excitement of wondering what the result will be, and whether any flavour save that of onions will survive the competition in the mixture.
It was the corner sweet-shop in Australia that first piqued my interest in interior design. I went into this space with a mixture of apprehension and excitement as a child. It was filled, floor to ceiling, with the most incredible rounded glass bowls filled to the brim with bonbons, buttons, and sweets.
We always hark back to what we used to love watching as kids: 'Noel's House Party,' 'Don't Forget Your Toothbrush,' shows that had that live excitement about them. You never knew what was going to happen and I found that really engaging.
I know that you need to be entertaining at the beginning to get people interested, and what interests people is knockouts and excitement.
When you're sitting ringside, there's a primal thing there that hooks into violence and excitement. It's just two guys going at it in the ring - there's no team, no one to pass the ball to - and there's a certain excitement to that.
If you are wearing the right jersey, people rallying in around you, and hugging each other when you win, and there's so much love and excitement when you're together. And then people seem to walk away, take their jerseys off, and start focusing on the color of your skin. It didn't matter for that couple hours at the game - why does it matter now?
