I think of myself as being a bit of a wimp deep down - a bourgeois wimp - and I'm fighting that. I think all Brits are, maybe.

Women have got to stop being polite. If I ever had children, which I don't, the first thing I'd teach a girl of mine is the words 'f - off.'

Being powerful is so much more interesting than being beautiful.

You write your life story by the choices you make.

It has nothing to do with clothing or makeup. Just put your shoulders back and chin up, and face the world with pride.

Actors are rogues and vagabonds. Or they ought to be.

When you're 16, 30 seems ancient. When you're 30, 45 seems ancient. When you're 45, 60 seems ancient. When you're 60, nothing seems ancient.

I don't think it's good to try and change anyone. The trick and the mystery - of relationships and life in general - is to learn to live with the bits you don't like.

Parkinson's is a slow but inevitable process. It's hard living with it on a daily basis. The difficulty facing people with it is that they never quite know 'Can I or can't I do this today?'

I don't like the word 'strong,' because a strong character is never an interesting character. A character is made interesting by their vulnerabilities and their weaknesses.

Where you grew up becomes a big part of who you are for the rest of your life. You can't run away from that. Well, sometimes the running away from it is what makes you who you are.

If you can't run, you crawl. If you can't crawl-- you find someone to carry you.

Anger's like a battery that leaks acid right out of meAnd it starts from the heart 'til it reaches my outer me

Emergencies” have always been the pretext on which the safeguards of individual liberty have been eroded.

Life is beautifully tragic. Giving it up isn't the hard part

It was amazing for me to even perform at the Grammys, but to do so alongside Annie Lennox was a truly incredible honor.

He plaies well that winnes. [He plays well that wins.]

I went through a whole phase when I was younger of being obsessed with Tolstoy and Kafka and Camus, all those really, beautiful, dark depressing books.

History is like self-reflection through the medium of language propelling itself into self-recognition.

I'm not into sugar for kids, but you don't want your kid to be the carrot kid. There's always the kid at the birthday parties carrying a bag of carrots. You've got to let them eat a little cake.

You see often it's not ideas, it's inertia, it's bureaucratism, it's all the other things that sometimes come in the way of a good idea.