Only fools are born wise.

A genuine smile is one of the world’s rarest treasures.

A fish that is afraid of drowning in a river is ignorant of its gifts.

A diamond earns its sparkle from the pressure it endures.

It is in the storm, not the calm, that a rainbow is born.

A determined seed cannot be hidden from the world, not even by dirt.

Calm skies don't make skillful eagles.

If you cry in the rain, only the sky will see your tears.

Birds keep singing beautiful songs, even if they have no audience.

Today's storms help you appreciate tomorrow’s sunshine.

Train the ears to hear more, the eyes to see more, the hands to do more, the feet to accomplish more, the mind to think more, the heart to feel more, and the soul to love more.

Trust me, ’ he says with a touch of impatience.‘Stop asking me to do that, ’ I say, equally as impatiently.

In the bad old days there were three easy ways of losing money - racing being the quickest women the pleasantest and farming the most certain.

My father was trained as a saddler, but in fact as a young man worked in his father's business of rearing and selling cattle, so he grew up in the countryside.

The civil rights movement was very important in my house, and then Vietnam was very important 'cause there were two boys, so I came of age during a very heated political climate.

Life doesn't hang around, it keeps moving and if you don't keep up you can lose things.

I do a lot of screen re-writing.

Everyone on the set has a mobile phone, and I found by pushing a few buttons, they could be programmed into different languages. I fixed Robbie's Coltrane to speak in Turkish.

I'm different, and I'm not afraid to be different.

Life is like our game at whist ... I don't enjoy the game much, but I like to play my cards well, and see what will be the end of it.

Politics needs a flexible mind, for it has no immutable or eternal rules. In politics immutable or eternal rules lead to inevitable and swift defeat.