Iraq is just like New York. It's just like Detroit. It's where people live and raise their families.

Violent cities, people who live in violent cities, find a way - as New Yorkers did 30 or 40 years ago - they find a way to just carry on. But you're stressed out. You're worried, you know.

I have very, very few friends. I live in a very tight circle and emotionally I'm probably not as generous as I once was. In an average week I probably meet 150 new people and that's uncomfortable sometimes.

Liberals want to live downtown. All over America - in New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Georgetown - there are crowds of liberals living in the gritty, ugly, dirty neighborhoods sensible people are trying to flee.

Certainly, when I left New Zealand, there was no career there as a comedian. I was doing more live gigs than anyone, and I was maybe doing three a week. Even then, it would often be the same people in the audience, going, 'I saw you on Tuesday, mate!'

My job is the same if I'm making a new musical or making a play for sixty-five people or doing a live television broadcast. The job is to take care of the actor; the job is to create an environment where they can excel and try to access all their attributes.

E-mail is a whole new way of being friends with people: intimate but not, chatty but not, communicative but not; in short, friends but not. What a breakthrough. How did we ever live without it? I have more to say on this subject, but I have to answer an instant message from someone I almost know.

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