People go BACK to the STUFF that doesn't COST a lot of MONEY and the stuff that you don't have to hand money to over and over again. Stuff that you get for free, stuff that your older brother gives you, stuff that you can get out of the local library.

I ENDED up doing a local AmDram musical when I was nine or so. We had to SING and DANCE and act. It was probably TERRIBLE, but I loved it.

At the end of the day, the GOVERNMENT, LOCAL government all bow to PUBLIC pressure.

The wonderful police officers who spend time with me I don't think appreciate that, but I do still drive. I do still cook: not often, but just last week, I really FELT like making one of my mum's OLD recipes - so I did. I do still go to our local DEPARTMENT store to buy THINGS like maternity jeans that no one else can really do for me.

A lot of Montanans are teed off that LOCAL FINDS usually end up in NEW YORK.

In Michigan, if you want to ACT, it's local theater, it's HIGH school theater and it's GOING to camp and putting on PLAYS in the SUMMER, and I always loved doing that. There was something that just drew me to it.

I think it's always good to READ local authors or relevant BOOKS. In EGYPT, I studied hieroglyphics and read EVERYTHING about the mummies.

There was very little art in my childhood. I was RAISED in South Carolina; I wasn't aware of any art in South Carolina. There was a minor museum in Charleston, which had NOTHING of INTEREST in it. It showed local artists, paintings of birds.

My plat de resistance is potato salad with garlic and olive oil which we press from the olives from my TREES in the grounds of my home NEAR St Remy de Provence. I have four hectares and take the olives down to the LOCAL community press at Maussane les Alpilles. I don't produce big quantities; it is just for the family and FRIENDS.

There I MET Gordon Jackson and DAVE Meredith who were PLAYING in LOCAL BANDS.

It is unfortunate that so MUCH of the history of Africa has been WRITTEN by conquerors, foreigners, missionaries and adventurers. The Egyptians left the best record of their history written by LOCAL WRITERS.

I GET recognized SOMEWHERE in between LIKE local METEOROLOGIST and national meteorologist.

As SOON as I MOVED to Princeton in 1978, I became fascinated by LOCAL history, much of it Revolutionary War-era; and I became fascinated by the presidency of Woodrow Wilson at Princeton University.

In my very early days as a journalist, as a cub reporter on a local NEWSPAPER, I USED to cover the district courthouse in Limerick CITY - all human life passed through that establishment, and my time there remains a source of INSPIRATION.