My job is to persuade people to toe the line and play within the laws of the game.

The objective of a referee is not to get mentioned. I tell a lot of young referees that not being mentioned is king. If you can achieve that, that then it has been a pretty good game.

Coaches will do what they can but it doesn't necessarily bother me. You are an international referee for a reason. If things like that are going to ruffle your feathers, don't bother doing the job.

The scrum and the tackle are the two really contentious areas of the game. If you get those two aspects right, most rugby matches will work in your favour.

If at first you don't succeed, get a bigger hammer.

But then southern hemisphere teams are more skilful than their northern hemisphere counterparts, which means games can be easier to referee.

As you become more proficient, fewer people can offer you advice, although in truth, that's when you need it the most because the stakes just keep getting higher and higher.

Big guys like you and me aren't allowed to whine.

Racing shirts should be sold on big, thick rolls like paper towels.

I have three tools at my disposal - my whistle, my body language and my talk. It is a question of how I marry them up to try to get the players around to my way of thinking.

Rowing is such a fine sport. Everyone goes backward, and the leader can see his opponents as they struggle in vain.

Mother Nature may be forgiving this year, or next year, but eventually she's going to come around and whack you. You've got to be prepared.

My films have been progressing towards a certain kind of minimalism, even though it was never intended. Elements which can be eliminated have been eliminated.

It is not so much upon the number of exercises, as the care with which they are done, that progreses and skill depend.

Poetry should be vital--either stirring our blood by its divine movements or snatching our breath by its divine perfection. To do both is supreme glory, to do either is enduring fame.

Turkey has a very young, dynamic, curious population. In Europe, Facebook and Twitter are mostly about sharing daily experiences while for Turkish people, social networks are political platforms.

The importance of recovering the customs and the institutions of the past thus inaugurating the archaeological approach to art.

Nothing is more simple than greatness; indeed, to be simple is to be great.

See, Colie, it's all about understanding. We're all worth something.

What can't be helped must be endured.

The difference between the vanity of a Frenchman and an Englishman seems to be this: the one thinks everything right that is French, the other thinks everything wrong that is not English.