So to some extent he [Barack Obama] is a victim of the expectations and the high hopes that we experienced.

Politicians never live up to all the hopes that we invest in them but I think he [Barack Obama] has made America a different country.

But Obama is a cool cat. We've seen that before: when he suffered reverses he didn't react immediately. He took a couple of days to react.

There may be a sense in the electorate, especially among independents that President Obama has overreached in some ways.

What I am interested in, what I write and care about, exists in the slow lane, somewhere between hand-ploughed fields and a pint of real ale.

Expansion of character is connected to expansion of destiny.

The cat is such a perfect symbol of beauty and superiority that it seems scarcely possible for any true aesthete and civilised cynic to do other than worship it.

Kissing, said Lesley, ought really to be taught as a school subject, preferably instead of religious studies, which nobody needed.

I believe that in life, you have to give things your best shot, do your best. You have to focus on what needs to be done, do the right thing, not the popular thing.

Old elephants limp off to the hills to die; old Americans go out to the highway and drive themselves to death with huge cars.

Sometimes I find that in my happy moments I could not believe that I had ever been miserable.

You would not have the wisdom and knowledge you now possess were it not for the setbacks you have faced, the mistakes you have made and the suffering you have endured.

It's a poor doctor who can't cure one disease without giving you another.

People have to snatch at happiness when they can, in this world. It is always easier to lose than to find.