We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases while the citizens may act only by permission which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history the stage of rule by brute force.

Being in a rock band is about touring. It's about writing songs and it's about making records but it's also about taking a wonderful smile onto that stage and making the people feel good about themselves.

I'm leaving the screen because I don't think I am very good in the pictures and I have this beautiful dream that I'm elegant on the stage.

Scientific views end in awe and mystery lost at the edge in uncertainty but they appear to be so deep and so impressive that the theory that it is all arranged as a stage for God to watch man's struggle for good and evil seems inadequate.

I always felt like my future was at stake every time I stepped on stage and that was kind of hair-raising. At some point I just went don't be frightened you can't do anything wrong it's your show.

At this early stage in our evolution now through our infancy and into our childhood and then with luck our growing up what our species needs most of all right now is simply a future.

You can't let your past hold your future hostage.

It's funny though because when I first started going to races after we met I was extremely nervous. It's like being backstage and hoping you don't trip over something or break an amp or accidentally speak into a live microphone so I was really hesitant.

Billy Crystal knows how to make people laugh. He's got 30 years on stage... there's no telling him what's funny.

I tell girls all the time that the men that have fallen in love with me have all fallen during a man repeller stage... funny how life works out like that.

On the stage you're there it's live. There's a beginning a middle an end. When something is funny you hear it right away.

I can never tell when something is funny. I just have to do it onstage and find out.

I love readings and my readers but the din of voices of the audience gives me stage fright and the din of voices inside whisper that I am a fraud and that the jig is up. Surely someone will rise up from the audience and say out loud that not only am I not funny and helpful but I'm annoying and a phony.

I would say that the war correspondent gets more drinks more girls better pay and greater freedom than the soldier but at this stage of the game having the freedom to choose his spot and being allowed to be a coward and not be executed for it is his torture.

Revolution! The people howls and cries Freedom that's what we're needing! We've needed it for centuries our arteries are bleeding. The stage is shaking the audience rock. The whole thing is over by nine o'clock.

We will not be intimidated or pushed off the world stage by people who do not like what we stand for and that is freedom democracy and the fight against disease poverty and terrorism.

When I go on stage man I just want people to have fun I don't want people to think about their problems I want people to get energy and nutrition and food from that so they can go back into the real world and work on their problems.

This June I'll travel once again to the Food and Wine Magazine Classic in Aspen Colorado. For many years my dear friend Julia Child and I have teamed up to teach classes together at the event for the past seven years my daughter Claudine has been my cooking partner on stage.

It's easy to be lazy when there's food lying around backstage or there's a fast-food joint a couple blocks away. But if you walk a little further ask around a bit of course there are exciting things to discover.

People see you onstage and the glamorous side but they don't see you traveling 600 miles a night eating truck stop food and spending by yourself staring at walls.

There is no way that writers can be tamed and rendered civilized or even cured. The only solution known to science is to provide the patient with an isolation room where he can endure the acute stages in private and where food can be poked in to him with a stick.

I remember being onstage once when I didn't have fear: I got so scared I didn't have fear that it brought on an anxiety attack.

If you have stage fright it never goes away. But then I wonder: is the key to that magical performance because of the fear?

You can't be a proper comic unless you've been out on stage and felt the fear.