Part of the reason I sort of shot out like a cannon out of Michigan and left home at such an early age is because I had to feel independent.

We were a savage little lot, Liverpool kids, not pacifist or vegetarian or anything. But I feel I've gone beyond that, and that it was immature to be so prejudiced and believe in all the stereotypes.

When you're 25, it's a little bit easier to be daring, especially if you are a pop star, because eccentric behavior is expected from you.

I am attracted to a thug. I like that quality, but I like the other side of it, too. Because all guys who go around behaving in macho ways are really scared little girls. So you have to look beneath the surface. There's a difference between my ideal man and a man that I'm sexually attracted to, believe me. Therein lies the rub.

Attention, if sudden and close, graduates into surprise; and this into astonishment; and this into stupefied amazement.

Did man, after his first inroad into South America, destroy, as has been suggested, the unwieldy Megatherium and the other Edentata?