My family was amazing; they exposed me to the world of show business, and, boy, it was the '70s and I got to spend a lot of time backstage at theaters and see the inner workings of how this entertainment industry is really put together.
I definitely learned about the inner workings of campaigns enough to know that I'm glad that I'm not in politics.
There are still so many questions to answer about the workings of the human body and, most mysterious of all, it is influenced by our state of mind.
As a former home secretary, I have access to and knowledge of the workings of the system in a way that individuals unfamiliar with the courts can never hope to have.
It is of first-class importance that our answer to the Riddle of the Sphinx should be in step with how we conduct our civilisation, and this should in turn be in step with the actual workings of living systems.
The real use of imaginative reading is precisely to suspend one's mind in the workings of another sensibility.
It isn't only in the name of free speech that the views of an itchy polemicist should be tolerated - and I say itchy polemicist promoting thought, not itchy ideologue promoting violence - but because provocation is indispensable to the workings of a sound, creative culture.
While I cannot comment in detail about the inter workings of the State Department, it is a matter of public record that I recommended a visa for Gerry Adams to visit the United States. I believe then, and I continue to believe now, that this step did help to advance the peace process in Northern Ireland.