Never underestimate the stimulation of eccentricity.

If you can go through life without experiencing pain you probably haven't been born yet.

If no one ever took risks, Michaelangelo would have painted the Sistine floor.

Talent is the gift plus the passion - a desire to succeed so intense that no force on earth can stop it.

Once you start compromising your thoughts, you're a candidate for mediocrity.

It's always painful when you're writing memoirs because you've got to go through the dark places, but it gives you a chance to find out the person you really are, not the person you thought you were.

Take care of him. And make him feel important. And if you can do that, you'll have a happy and wonderful marriage. Like two out of every ten couples.

I love living. I have some problems with my life, but living is the best thing they've come up with so far.

Writing is an escape from a world that crowds me. I like being alone in a room. It's almost a form of meditation- an investigation of my own life.

I was constantly being dragged out of movies for laughing too loud.

Everyone thinks they can write a play; you just write down what happened to you. But the art of it is drawing from all the moments of your life.

I always feel anxious if anyone’s close to uncovering my secrets.

Chess is not just a game. It is a way of life.

Freedom works.

Sometimes it is the people no one imagines anything of who do the things that no one can imagine.

The defense of morals is the battle-cry which best rallies stupidity against change.

When I'm lying drunk at an airport the press call me Irish... but when I win an Oscar, I'm classified as British.

It's unfortunate that the entire country is a racist country.We're living in a country that discriminates, and has certain racist tendencies.

Choose something you are passionate about - or a pain point that has affected you and that you feel really needs to be changed.