But I would be naive not to recognize the number of musicians who tell me they have been influenced by me and sight me - as well as Alex and Neil - as a musician who has been a positive influence on their playing.

Since turning professional at 18 I have travelled the world playing the game that I love and consider myself a global player. As the World No.1 right now I wish to be a positive role model and a sportsperson that people respect and enjoy watching.

To me it doesn't matter how good you are. Sport is all about playing and competing. Whatever you do in cricket and in sport enjoy it be positive and try to win.

Positive healthy loving relationships in your twenties... I don't know if anyone would disagree with it: I think they're the exception not the norm. People are either playing house really aggressively because they're scared of what an uncertain time it is or they're avoiding commitment altogether.

Community organizing is all about building grassroots support. It's about identifying the people around you with whom you can create a common passionate cause. And it's about ignoring the conventional wisdom of company politics and instead playing the game by very different rules.

I think what's fascinating is how many people are playing in politics who maybe haven't played before.

My biggest pet peeve are just girls who go to sports bars who have no intention on caring what teams are playing like they're looking for just a night out. That drives me more crazy than anything else. Like don't pretend to be a sports fan.

The struggle to get weapons is continuous but the United States will aid us if it finds Israel displaying a willingness for peace.

As for the promotion of peace congresses we have had our meetings and assemblies but the promotion through them of the determined and effective will to peace displaying itself in action and policy remains to be achieved.

People ask me a lot about the values I got from playing for the Cubs for so many years. The value I got out of it was patience. A lot of people these days are not very patient.

We can't blame children for occupying themselves with Facebook rather than playing in the mud. Our society doesn't put a priority on connecting with nature. In fact too often we tell them it's dirty and dangerous.

Our job is to represent the truth of human nature whether you're playing a tender love story that's set in a coffee shop or whether you're in 'The Avengers ' which is set in a Manhattan which is exploding.

Hearing my songs in public freaks me out a bit. There was one restaurant I really liked in L.A. but I had to stop going there when they started playing my music. It felt kinda awkward.

We're real people and we're a band that's been playing on the scene for a long time. We've made a lot of friends and one enemy we've always had was the NME. They've always basically slated us and they've basically never ever written about the music.

Music is a language and different people who come along are each using that language to do something different but all coming at it in a similar vein inasmuch as it's always community based and for the most part nonprofit. Most bands don't ever come within a mile of profit - clearly these people are not playing music to make money.

I know that I can sing. That's the reason I started playing music when I was twelve years old.

I can play punk rock and I love playing punk rock but I was into every other style of music before I played punk rock.

Maybe someday you can accuse somebody of being a poseur by selling out and playing blues music but that's just not going to happen in my lifetime.

I'm not suggesting people abandon musical instruments and start playing their cars and apartments but I do think the reign of music as a commodity made only by professionals might be winding down.

I'm prepared to spend the rest of my life playing clubs if that means I'm playing music that I believe in.

I got interested in the idea of music that could make itself in a sense in the mid 1960s really when I first heard composers like Terry Riley and when I first started playing with tape recorders.

I started playing piano when I was 6. And I knew that wanted to be involved in that form of expression whether it was through music or acting or dancing or painting or writing.

No matter how many times people say it - 'Oh I'm just writing this for myself' 'Oh I'm just doing this for myself' - nobody's doing it for themselves! You're doing it for an audience. So whether I'm performing or writing a book or playing music it's definitely to be put out there and to be received in some way definitely.

I think the drummer should sit back there and play some drums and never mind about the tunes. Just get up there and wail behind whoever is sitting up there playing the solo. And this is what is lacking definitely lacking in music today.