No people in the world can make you feel so small as the English.

Extraordinary people survive under the most terrible circumstances and they become more extraordinary because of it.

There is no nonsense so gross that society will not, at some time, make a doctrine of it and defend it with every weapon of communal stupidity.

The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend.

I cannot imagine any boy of spirit who would not be delighted to play a drunkard even to vomiting in front of his Sunday school. Indeed, the vomiting might be the chief attraction of the role.

The world is full of people whose notion of a satisfactory future is, in fact, a return to the idealized past.

A truly great book should be read in youth, again in maturity and once more in old age, as a fine building should be seen by morning light, at noon and by moonlight.

A man must be obedient to the promptings of his innermost heart.

Art is wine and experience is the brandy we distill from it.

Conversation in its true meaning isn't all wagging the tongue; sometimes it is a deeply shared silence.

The dog is a yes-animal. Very popular with people who can't afford a yes man.

Every time government attempts to handle our affairs, it costs more and the results are worse than if we had handled them ourselves.

It was a great escape for me and it was a way to take a break from what was going on in my own world, to go into another world.

To me, leadership is about encouraging people. It’s about stimulating them. It’s about enabling them to achieve what they can achieve - and to do that with a purpose.

We show a lot of film [with Regis Philbin] from my career which is most enjoyable. I enjoy watching it.

You cannot change the stripes of a leopard.

Poetry has become the higher algebra of metaphors.

The songs keep on writing themselves, and I really love them. It's as close as I get to a religion.

If wisdom be attainable, let us not only win but enjoy it.

In my country we go to prison first and then become President.

Excellence isn't about meeting the spec, it's about setting the spec.