Most films are written and made with a hero around 35, or even 25.

You have to be selfish to be an actor.

I'm playing one of the principal roles, which gives you more clout and more confidence.

I'm actually as common as mud. I'm not particularly well read, or bred. But the way I look... I seem to have this sort of 'aristocratic' demeanor.

It's a question of keeping one's eyes and ears open and watching how other people play the game. They're watching me too, to see what my attitude is like.

I was a window dresser for Burton's once. What really put me off was the area manager coming round and saying, Charles, I think you're a natch at this.

A handful of older, romantic leading men, like Sean Connery, Jack Nicholson, and Robert Redford are still landing parts.

I spent a lot of time [between takes] apologising to Peter Dinklage [Dance's on-screen son, Tyrion Lannister] because I treat him appallingly.

You have to attempt to be objective about yourself.

A car to pick me up every day, a chair with my name on it, everybody being very polite... what can you do except sit back and watch it all, try to take it all in?

Power is always a corrupting influence. In this mythical time - let's call it medieval, feudal - people in power are dictatorial and don't want their positions of power to be threatened.

Information paints no picture, sings no song, and writes no poem.

Secrecy was the problem

It's weird when you think that you are weird and it's weird when you don't know that you are weird.

Achieving gender equality requires the engagement of women and men, girls and boys. It is everyone's responsibility.

The prophet and the martyr do not see the hooting throng. Their eyes are fixed on the eternities.

The Chavez-Obama pictures will join a postmodern photo array that includes Donald Rumsfeld gifting Saddam Hussein with spurs from President Reagan.

Young Dandelion On a hedge-side Said young Dandelion Who'll be my bride? Said young Dandelion With a sweet air, I have my eye on Miss Daisy fair.

Real life consists of the tensions produced by the incompatibility of opposites, each of which is needed

My religion teaches me that a promise once made or a vow once taken for a worthy object may not be broken.

For the writer, there is nothing quite like having someone say that he or she understands, that you have reached them and affected them with what you have written.