Madonna Ciccone

The thing about dancing - what it taught me all those years - is it gives you an amazing sense of discipline in forcing yourself to do things that you know are good for you but you don't really want to do.

It has taken me a long time to work out the function of ex-boyfriends, at least for me: how they can help you work out what you want from life and from a partner by showing you what you don't. If a man is your ex, it's better all round if he was not Mr. Right.

To ask questions can become the laziest and wobbliest occupation of a mind, but when you must yourself answer the problem that you have posed, you will meditate your question with care and frame it with precision.

This rise of the new global mega-rich is happening as established institutions are falling. The fall runs the gamut from the music business and traditional media to the Detroit automakers who find themselves obsolete, outmaneuvered, and out-priced by entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley, Mumbai, Shanghai, and even Siberia.