Historically, the British have always been rather wary of grand engineering projects - perhaps understandably, given that many of them have been delivered late and over budget.

Nice guys finish last, but we get to sleep in.

It's not a bad idea to occasionally spend a little time thinking about things you take for granted. Plain everyday things.

In principle, there are only three main components of spending that much matter to monetary policy: consumer spending, business investment and exports and trade.

We are more likely to cheat if we see others doing so. We tend to conform to accepted norms of reasonable behaviour, rather than adhere to strict rules.

Someday we'll look back on this moment and plow into a parked car.

If you're not making some mistakes, it probably means you're not trying hard enough.

Men don't know much about women. We do know when they're happy. We know when they're crying, and we know when they're pissed off. We just don't know in what order these are gonna come at us.

It's amazing, if you know what you want to say, how fast it is to write.

Being funny, it turns out, is like being a bank. It's a confidence trick. As long as everyone believes in you, you are fine.

But sometimes it's good to dare yourself to do the unthinkable. And rather than stand in front of an audience with no clothes on, I decided to have a go at stand-up comedy.

I don't mean to be rude—" he began, in a tone that threatened rudeness in every syllable."Yet, sadly, accidental rudeness occurs alarmingly often, " Dumbledore finished the sentence gravely.

I couldn’t trust my own mind anymore, which wasthe scariest thing I’ve ever experienced.

Strive to follow your big dreams. If you fail, cherish the valuable experience gained during the process. There’s always a second time.

We best teach what we ourselves have learned.

A passionate obsession with the outside world or the private lives of others is an attempt to compensate for a lack of meaning in one's own life

People hate what they don't understand and try to destroy it.

We don't often talk about the fact that writing is all about rhythm. When you get too up in your head, you can lose a lot of your writing. Sometimes what a writer really needs to do is go dancing.

Of course the modern detective story puts off its best tricks till the last, but Doyle always put his best tricks first and that's why they're still the best ones.

Freedom is not given - it is taken.

What I do has to be a function of what I can do, not a function of what people ask me to do.