Art is an effort to create, beside the real world, a more humane world.

We owe to the Middle Ages the two worst inventions of humanity - romantic love and gunpowder.

Without a family, man, alone in the world, trembles with the cold.

The first recipe for happiness is: avoid too lengthy meditation on the past.

We can talk frankly about our defects only to those who recognise our qualities.

An artist must be a reactionary. He has to stand out against the tenor of the age and not go flopping along.

A happy marriage is a long conversation which always seems too short.

A marriage without conflicts is almost as inconceivable as a nation without crises.

We appreciate frankness from those who like us. Frankness from others is called insolence.

Conversation would be vastly improved by the constant use of four simple words: I do not know.

A successful marriage is an edifice that must be rebuilt every day.

Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws.

Our sense of what is valuable will hence be radically distorted if we must perpetually condemn as tedious everything we lack, simply because we lack it.

I would have played Tom Finney in his overcoat - there would have been four men marking him when we were kickin' in.

My parents and my grandmother inspire me every day and, every day, in my work and personal life.

The great thing about Google is that you type in neuro-surgery and somehow you end up with Peter Sellers or watching Frank Sinatra. Google is a great resource.

One of the greatest misconceptions about Theodore Roosevelt - in his time and ours - is that he was impetuous.

We all have days where we can't pronounce things or give it the emotion it deserves.

Mystery bores me. It chores me. I know what happens and so do you. It's the machinations that wheel us there that aggravate, perplex, interest, and astound me.

There is no high-carbon future

To me, political office should be like jury duty. You should just get a notice in the mail one day and say, 'Aw, sh - , I'm secretary of state next month.