I only met Margaret Thatcher twice. The thing that I thought about meeting her was how extraordinarily intelligent she was. You really had to be on your game otherwise she'd make mincemeat of you.

There are things you break that can't be put back together again. And Kashmir may be one of them.

Rock and roll music - the music of freedom frightens people and unleashes all manner of conservative defense mechanisms.

What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist.

One of the extraordinary things about human events is that the unthinkable becomes thinkable.

Language is courage: the ability to conceive a thought, to speak it, and by doing so to make it true.

‘Respect for religion’ has become a code phrase meaning ‘fear of religion.’ Religions, like all other ideas, deserve criticism, satire, and, yes, our fearless disrespect.

In the cookie of life, friends are the chocolate chips.

Language upon a silvered tongue affords enchantment enough.

The whole story of migration and what that has done in interconnecting the planet is obviously something I've written about a lot.

faith without doubt is addiction

Ever have a dream so real you felt you could reach out and touch it?

To pray without expectation is to misunderstand the whole concept of prayer and relationship with God.

A little learning is a dangerous thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.

All legends have a base in fact.

I love artists. I love watching other people work.

It taught me to hope, as I had scarcely ever allowed myself to hope before.

I feel privileged that people are looking up to me and perhaps a dream will be born because of my presence.

The Photograph is concerned with the power that the past has to interfere with the present: the time bomb in the cupboard.

In the silence between your heartbeat bides a summons. Do you hear it? Name it if you must, or leave it forever nameless, but why pretend it is not there?

All has gone to rest, and I don't know whether I'm alive or will live or whether I'm rushing like this through the world for I'm not longer weeping or laughing