Graham Greene famously said that all writers need a chip of ice in their heart; Cusk can come across as the most beautiful ice palace of stalactites and stalagmites, and some people find her company, albeit by proxy, about as inviting as a long weekend in a walk-in frigidaire.

I think the two are kind of synonymous for me; songwriting is like my form of diary making. It's how I process the world. Without doing that, I feel kind of lost. The characters that I play often come out in the songs and the challenges that they face, albeit in an abstract way.

We must forget the prewar time, which was totally different. The sooner we adjust ourselves to the new, changed world, to its new, albeit harsh, beauties, the sooner will each individual be able to find his own personal happiness. The distress of Germany will spiritualize and deepen us.

To some degree. I think that I've always been very much of a chordal person. The chords are the foundation of everything. Some of Yes' stuff is very linear, albeit complex, but it's single-line melodic stuff. So I kind of had to wear a different cap working with Yes. It's not so much chord-based.

In many respects, Afghanistan represents a more difficult problem set. It does not have a number of the blessings that Iraq has in terms of the oil, gas, land of two rivers, the human capital that Iraq built up over the years, the muscle memory of a strong government - albeit one that was corrupted over time.

It seems that we're heading toward the day that films will be released in all platforms simultaneously, albeit with a cost premium to see it at home. But I hope that theater-going doesn't end - I think that watching movies on the big screen with an audience is still the best format and also an important one for society.

I think what we find fascinating and interesting is when people take our music and turn it into emotionally something else. And weirdly, Lorde's version of 'Everybody Wants to Rule the World,' the production really goes with the lyric more than our version does, because our version, albeit the lyric is dark, the music is quite uplifting.

When evaluating the players, too little emphasis is placed on the individual. Reaction times are measured, stress situations are simulated, sleep behaviour is analysed, eating behaviour, how the body reacts - everything is available. The control over the players has got out of hand. They are judged on this data, albeit subjectively. That's madness.

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