"To the artist is sometimes granted a sudden, transient insight which serves in this matter for experience. A flash, and where previously the brain held a dead fact, the soul grasps a living truth! At moments we are all artists."

"Journalists say a thing that they know isn't true, in the hope that if they keep on saying it long enough it will be true."

"Pessimism, when you get used to it, is just as agreeable as optimism."

"Any change, even a change for the better, is always accompanied by drawbacks and discomforts."

"Canadians know that the promise of a recession didn't happen because of anything we did here. If you look at all the causes of the recession, problems in mortgage markets, the problems in the banking sector, the problems in government finance in countries like Greece, none of those problems were in present Canada."

"To conquer fear is to realize that kindness can heal wounds that time cannot."

"When I finish an album and I find myself listening to it in the car, because it makes me feel a certain way, that's the time to try to let other people know about it."

"The last months, weeks and days have seen accelerating discussions, involving the DUP for the first time, about a comprehensive agreement which would see all outstanding matters dealt with and the Good Friday Agreement implemented in full."