Getting up at four in the morning to tend the farm while the world is quiet - feeding animals, mucking stalls, gathering eggs, filling water troughs, checking fences, letting animals out into the field - is a high point to my day.

I am a big fan of music in general. I listen to all genres: hip-hop, R&B, whatever sounds good to me; it doesn't matter to me where it comes from - there are no boundaries, no fences. If I like it, then it will inspire me to create.

I've always swung the same way. The difference is when I swing and miss, people say, 'He's swinging for the fences.' But when I swing and make contact people say, 'That's a nice swing.' But there's no difference, it's the same swing.

My suggestion to newspapers everywhere is to give the public a reason to read them again. So here's an idea: get on a big story with widespread public appeal, devote your best resources to it, say a quiet prayer, and swing for the fences.

I can't imagine that I would be the person I am today if, over the last seven years, I had been married to somebody who didn't feel 100 percent comfortable with my drive, my ambition, my interest in thinking big and swinging for the fences.

These are human issues. These are human stories. I think that's why 'Fences' has been able to resonate and been able to hit so many people over the years because it is just that. You can't run away from the racial specifics of it, but that's just a part of it.

I don't get into these petty things, Kentucky-Louisville. To me, it's nonsense... There will be people at Kentucky that will have a nervous breakdown if they lose to us... They've got to put the fences up on bridges. There will be people consumed by Louisville.

It's funny, because even though on a drama like 'Picket Fences' those long monologues would stress me out, doing special effects where there's a green screen and there's nobody there to to react to and you have to recite all this dialogue, it's so much more difficult.

Surely there is grandeur in knowing that in the realm of thought, at least, you are without a chain; that you have the right to explore all heights and depth; that there are no walls nor fences, nor prohibited places, nor sacred corners in all the vast expanse of thought.

Every sport has its dangers. I've been pretty lucky, knock on wood. But I've had really confident, brave and smart horses growing up, which I think is important when you're young. You are working with massive animals over big fences, and especially at this top level, there is really no room for error.

The thing that happens is that politicians run on tough-on-crime rhetoric. You appeal to the public and say, 'Let's put more money into taller fences, tougher laws, tougher sentencing, handcuffs,' and where does that money come from? Well, immediately, it comes out of all the money needed for corrections.

We deal here with the right of all of our children, whatever their race, to an equal start in life and to an equal opportunity to reach their full potential as citizens. Those children who have been denied that right in the past deserve better than to see fences thrown up to deny them that right in the future.

The issue of migration has played a key role in all of our member states, wherever we are. Only we, as a European Union, can convince our citizens that we do have an answer to this - not deny migration, not pretend you can solve it by building fences and walls, not pretending we can solve it by letting everybody in.

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