That's why I find Elon to be an inspiring example. He said, 'Well, what should I really do in this world? Solve cars, global warming, and make humans multi-planetary.' I mean those are pretty compelling goals, and now he has businesses to do that.

I have always loved and avidly read the novels of Jack London, Jules Verne and Ernest Hemingway. The characters depicted in their books, who are brave and resourceful people embarking on exciting adventures, definitely shaped my inner self and nourished my love for the outdoors.

He dared to exhort nonviolence in a time when the violence of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had exploded on us; he exhorted morality when science, technology and the capitalist order had made it redundant; he replaced self-interest with group interest without minimizing the importance of self. In fact, the interdependence of the social and the personal is at the heart of his philosophy. He seeks the simultaneous and interactive development of the moral person and the moral society.

When we were kids growing up in Liverpool, all we ever wanted to be was Elvis Presley.

And I never forgot this as long as I've ever performed, no matter how crap I had felt before I went on stage. I just remember Tina Turner going up there, singing her heart out for everybody, and meantime she had a 102-degree fever and she was feeling terrible.

I was about to meet Beyonce, and I had a full-blown anxiety attack. Then she popped in looking gorgeous, and said, 'You're amazing! When I listen to you I feel like I'm listening to God.