As a Londoner I was able to see how the world of power and money cast its shadow on those who failed.

The English can laugh and at the same time strike you down, without the least compunction. It is the secret of their success as a nation.

I just wanted to be an ordinary, middle-class person. When I was at Cambridge I made great efforts to lose the last remnants of my cockney accent.

There is no humiliation worse than the consciousness of a wasted life. It stains the spirit, forestalls hope, and destroys any motive for action or change.

You don't have to be brought up in a grand house to have a sense of the past, and I truly believe that there are certain people to whom or through whom the territory - the place, the past - speaks.

I don't believe necessarily the past is in the past. It's eternal, it's all around us.

Every book for me is a chapter in the long book which will finally be closed on the day of my death.

The endless chatter of this journey had wearied me.

Yes, I have inherited the past because I have acknowledged it at last? And, now that I have come to understand it, I no longer need to look back.

I believe that the gods themselves are frightened of the world which they have fashioned.

One can forgive Shakespeare anything, except one's own bad lines.

Call on the Saviour, He will save you.

My social life is much better, since I stopped spending it with other people.

Why don't you knock it off with them negative waves ?Why don't you dig how beautiful it is out here ?Why don't you say something righteous and hopeful for a change ?

Like, Mission Of Burma to me always sounded almost like they were part of the British Arty New Wave. I kind of like that. I like not being able to tell the difference.

I went to the store and bought eight apples; the clerk said, "Do you want these in a bag?" I said, "Oh, no, man, I juggle."

I don't think nationalism is alone holding the field; it's in contention with a lot of different things.

Business and the environment: Wasting resources costs the earth - and lowers your competitive edge

Home is where the heart can laugh without shyness.

Sooner strangle an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires.

My hero is Michelle Williams, who I grew close to when we did 'Meek's Cutoff.' She's an extraordinary actor and mom.