I feel like I've always been a great mediator.

The cool thing about the smaller gigs - it's the intimacy. You really feel connected to the crowd.

With Metallica, it's hard. I tend to like it all, but the older stuff, when we get into the deeper cuts, it really excites me personally.

You listen to a Metallica song, and you listen to the drums, and they're not necessarily swinging, but the arrangements are different. Why is that? Because it's more in tune with jazz arrangements. It's very different. It's not a traditional rock and roll production, in terms of the drums.

That's all I ever do, just try and do the best I can and cater to the song, cater to the music.

The Big 4 tour was really great.

We enjoy playing small shows, big shows, whatever. There's the energy of the visual production, and all that stuff starts to happen, so when you see it come to life, it's pretty exciting.

I believe in rock and roll and heavy music in general.

When Lars said, 'We want you to be in Metallica,' I was blown away.

What I have learned about Metallica is that it's all about taking chances and challenges.

'Some Kind of Monster' is a challenge, and 'Through the Never' is an extension of that. Even the album we made with Lou Reed, it was a challenge.

I think that young people should embrace artists like Lemmy from Motorhead but also be open to different styles.

Any band that you have, any relationship in your life, is gonna come with moments of tension.

Joe Walsh is somebody who... he's a writer, obviously, and he's a singer-songwriter, whatever, but at the end of the day, when it comes to the Eagles, he's there to play guitar, and he's there to supply whatever is needed for that band, and that is what I feel with Metallica.

There is a lot of energy between Lars and James, and sometimes that energy can erupt. I know that before I was in the band, Kirk was the guy who was often in the middle, and it was important at that time. And now I feel like sometimes I'm the guy that's in the middle between not just James and Lars, but even Kirk.

I feel, in my life, in any situation I've been in, I've always been sort of in the middle.

Each album you make, each body of music, you just never know how the world's going to relate to it.

I was fortunate to not get wrapped up too hard in anything that was too dangerous.

I didn't write 'Enter Sandman.'

Bill Ward, when you hear his beats, he's not just playing a straight 4/4 beat; he's doing almost a hip-hop beat. There's a song called 'Sweet Leaf.' The drum beat that he's playing, he's trying to kind of swing and funkify it. Now, is he doing a great job of it? Maybe not. Maybe.

Lars Ulrich is not a jazz drummer, but he grew up listening to jazz. Why? Because his father, Torben - an incredible tennis player - loved jazz. Jazz musicians used to stay at their house.

I've been friends with Jaco Pastorius's son since 1996 - Johnny Pastorius, the eldest son. And I remember when I first met him, I said, 'Some day, you've gotta make a film about your father,' because his influence is so broad.

Back in the day, being a young, inspired bass player, I started to gravitate toward jazz fusion. I almost would have called myself an elitist. I got to the point where, for a little bit there, I was more interested in instrumental music.

The first album I ever bought was Santana's 'Abraxas.' Obviously, I was a huge fan of Carlos because he had the unique guitar sound, and he had incorporated a lot of the percussion and really, really fun rhythmic bass lines in there, too.

We must not confuse religion with God, or technology with science. Religion stands in relationship to God as technology does in relation to science. Both the conduct of religion and the pursuit of technology are capable of leading mankind into evil; but both can prompt great good.

Man is a competitive creature, and the seeds of conflict are built deep into our genes. We fought each other on the savannah and only survived against great odds by organising ourselves into groups which would have had a common purpose, giving morale and fortitude.

Scientists need to be prepared to engage, and the best people to engage with are students, ideally from primary school because there's no question that their capacity to work out complex things is extremely good.

I think that good parenting should allow children to be children. That naivety and slightly open way of looking at the world is very valuable.

Carbon dioxide is unusual because it doesn't go through the usual three phases of matter, from solid to liquid to gas, but it goes straight from solid to gas. The volume of the gas is much greater than the volume of the solid. When a solid turns into a gas, we say it sublimes. The process is sublimation.

By discovering how our minds work, we can improve our learning power and unlock our true potential.

I think scientific arrogance really does give a great degree of distrust. I think people begin to think that scientists like to believe that they can run the universe.

I do not know of any credible evidence that suggests Dr. Zavos can clone a human being. This seems to be yet another one of his claims to get publicity.

Over the past 20 years, I have presented many science programmes on BBC1. But none is, I think, more socially important, or of more human interest, than this ongoing series of 'Child of Our Time.'

I don't much like being a public figure, because so often how people appear is not how they really are, and I think one of the issues about our society is that we make judgments about people on the basis of very flimsy evidence.

I was born with my moustache and, no, I've never been tempted to shave it off. I don't spend a lot of time worrying about my face and, like Gilbert and Sullivan's Katisha, my best feature is my left shoulder-blade.

It is possible that strong levels of belief in God, gods, spirits or the supernatural might have given our ancestors considerable comforts and advantages.

Childhood depression tends to be more common in inner cities, being most frequently related to serious social deprivation, bullying, domestic violence, wartime experience and famine. It is, for example, a serious problem among children who are traumatised refugees.

My own field, the prevention of genetic disorders in babies, has been possible only because of humane work on animals.

I actually don't mind whether people can choose the sex of the baby - in fact humans have been trying to do it for 3,000 years. But there is a real issue about the safety of the technique.

Some of the hotels I've been put up in for work in Scotland have been shockingly bad. They're the type of hotel where the bedroom is like a cell and the Internet doesn't work. I feel quite aggrieved at that because you should at least be treated reasonably well and have basic comfort.

My father died when I was nine, but I came from a stable family environment, which I think does contribute to being well-behaved.

Parents should talk to their children, even when they are babies and can't talk back.

It is important that legislation keeps pace with scientific progress.

I'm a traditional Jew with an orthodox background, and it informs much of my approach to science. Of course I think it's very important that if you have those sorts of backgrounds you don't impose them on other people as a clinician, of course.

Some people, both scientists and religious people, deal with uncertainty by being certain. That is dangerous in the fundamentalists and it is dangerous in the fundamentalist scientists.

That Britain today is a liberal society is largely because of the philosophy and outlook of the Anglican Church, which did so much to shape our core values in the past few centuries.

Childhood is not dead. Children were worse off when we were hunter-gatherers; they were threatened in medieval times and exploited during the Industrial Revolution. Was it any better in the time of Charles Kingsley or Charles Dickens?

The disturbed individual who believes himself to be Christ, or to receive messages from God, is something of a cliche in our society. Ever since Sigmund Freud, many people have associated religiosity with neurosis and mental illness.

Following 25 children for the TV series 'Child of Our Time' has been extraordinary. The BBC's original plan was to commemorate the new millennium. What better way than to film a number of expectant mums from across the U.K.? Coming from widely different backgrounds, all were due to give birth on January 1, 2000.

We are more dependent on science and engineering than at any other time in history. However, there is plenty of evidence that far too many people are scientifically illiterate, often having been put off science at school.