People think they can take a pill and become a champion. But the harder you work, the luckier you get. You have to work a move hundreds or thousands of times.

Beat a man with what he doesn't know.

My philosophy has always been it's good to learn everything.

Everything I did was practical. You have to strip things down and get to the practical stuff.

The ceilings had set off a ghostly echo, giving all that desperate hilarity the quality of a memory even as I sat listening to it, memories of things I'd never known.

To me, it's OK to have differences. But we don't have to be mad about it. You know? And I think that's where sometimes we get so passionate that we - you know, it turns into anger.

Good things aren't supposed to just fall into your lap. God is very generous, but He expects you to do your part first.

The whole world is simply my story, projected back to me on the screen of my own perception. All of it.

If love were a product, the queue at the faulty goods desk would stretch right round the universe and back. It doesn't work properly. The seams come apart and it's full of powdered glass.

I've been lucky to travel through quite a bit of Europe and Australia, but I would love to do Asia and South America and South Africa.

Anyone who composes and conducts at the same time is immediately suspect, because he must be faking one or the other.

Casting is very instinctual. I really like to meet people. To me, it's about their essence more than their audition.

I had a somewhat frenetic childhood because my mum and dad split up when I was five, and then my mum remarried.

Never lead your soldiers to battle if you have not first confirmed their spirit and known them to be without fear and ordered; and never test them except when you see that they hope to win.