Very few people know how the bottom feels, but I do. It's like quicksand. It grabs you, sucks you under and won't let go. When life is like that it's easy to drift and continue to make the same comfortable choices that are killing you, over and over again.

For me, that's the foundation of songwriting: improvisation. In improvisation on instruments, I feel creation is going a new path with every note, somewhere you haven't been before. You discover things, you're the adventurer in music.

The look of a film indicates the relationship you have with characters. You don't pick an aesthetic in abstract – you need to have a core point, a core reason to make a film, and the form of aesthetic springs from that necessity. Everything has to relate to that core intention.

We fear the unknown, but the less you know about something the more knowledge there is to gain, and hence the less afraid you will be. When you understand a situation and are fully prepared having analysed the risks and mitigated them- you may well still be apprehensive, and that's normal.

We are the first generation that through its neglect could destroy the relationship between humans and the planet, and perhaps the last generation that can prevent dangerous climate change.

I often joke that social media is the 'NutraSweet' version—it seems good but doesn't deliver the psychological benefit we expect. In fact, our use of technology can be a big opportunity cost on a lot of the stuff that truly matters for happiness.

You must free yourself from the fear of losing something such that you can enjoy that something. If you're afraid of a relationship ending, you'll never be able to enjoy the relationship.

One of the greatest myths in the lives of the people I coach is, 'I will be happy when…' as if there is some place to go to. There's only one book that ends with the phrase happily ever after, that's a fairy-tale.

Seeing the earth from space was just breathtaking – I cannot imagine anywhere being more beautiful, we're living on an absolute paradise. Seeing our planet from that vantage point also changed my perspective on the concept of home. I used to think of myself as a New Yorker, as an America, but now? I'm a citizen of earth first and still all those things. Now, when I think of home, I think of the earth.

I continue to go back to that same economically depressed neighbourhood that I grew up in, in the Bronx. I tell these people that I was them, 60 years ago, and they can be me as they continue their journey. I hope to continue shining that path and encouraging others as they pursue their own dreams.

We were able to create a brand before we created a product – and that means that the spaces that we can now go into are so vast, because people know Deliciously Ella not just for a single food product but for an entire lifestyle play.

We live in the age of the refugee, the age of the exile.