New Zealanders have conventions and pleasantries, but we are direct. We are encouraged to be transparent with our behavior and not to employ passive aggression.

You're making a big mistake if you think that you can beat me.

Tell people you're a Canadian or a Kiwi when you travel and they'll adore you.

If you devote yourself entirely to a pursuit, there is no way you cannot find beauty and fulfillment.

Whatever you want is as elusive as you make it.

We are taught to want a thing. We are taught that having that thing will make us happy. We are taught that having it immediately is the answer. We are taught a corrupted version of success. And love.

As lovely as people are to me about my performance, I'm still a huge critic. I like very little of what I ever do.

If you do your work, eventually there will be a spark. A fire. A blaze.

We are not taught that hardship is the anvil upon which we are beaten into beauty. We are not taught that some of our greatest moments are some of our most difficult.

I'm not George Clooney, so I can't just pick and choose. I take roles where they occur.

I will say that the food in both Japan and Italy was immaculate. I don't remember having bad food in either country.

The older I get, the more I believe that the greatest kindness is acceptance.

My day is done, and I am like a boat drawn on the beach, listening to the dance-music of the tide in the evening.

I'm not an overnight success. I've been doing it for 12 years. It's been lovely and varied so far.

Some have too much, yet still do crave; I little have, and seek no more. They are but poor, though much they have, And I am rich with little store.

I'm normally drawn to something I haven't done and seen before.

I just come up with the stories and write them as well as I can. There's not really a great deal of strokey-beard thinking going on.

The Clean Michigan Initiative has been and continues to be a success.

If you can't go to secondary school, the boys get to go and the girls don't, you're locked into a cycle of poverty, because you don't have a chance.

The tenacity of life is mind-boggling. We keep finding it where no one thought it could be.

There's something in a flying horse, There's something in a huge balloon.