The trick was not to stifle the emotions, but to control them. Love, anger, grief – all were weapons in their way, but they needed to be kept in check.

Know a man by his metaphors.

You pay by the hour, even if the job only takes five minutes. I don’t do fractions.

Slow animals always become prey in the end.

If cats could count, they’d start getting nervous around the time they put paid to their fifth life.

A condensed Shakespeare with all of the dull parts removed, leaving only the great moments of drama: ghosts, and bloodied daggers, and dying kings.

But he was wounded, and tired, and winter was still upon him.

It’s a full-time job being homeless. It’s a full-time job being poor.

Misery loved company, but damnation needed it.

My last thought before falling asleep was that we are all a lot more capable of conquering obstacles and fears than we think.

Health is the great blessing of God.

Whoever neglects the arts when he is young has lost the past and is dead to the future.

The BBC fulfils a wonderful cultural function. Maybe the problem is that it feels it needs to be everything to everybody.

The lovely Hazard girls', they used to call them. Huh. Lovely is as lovely does; if they looked like what they behave like, they'd frighten little children.

That, we encourage, and I think we're doing a pretty good job with the website and also the DVD, like the first season came out and the second season's being prepared now.

In a quiet Franciscan monastery kind and silent monks looked after me. After many weeks I was discharged. Unfit for further service.

Turn your car into a monastery.

The efficiency of God may be understood as either creation or providence.

Ibrahim tells his story without a grain of complaint, and this was true for all of the band members. This is very much part of the Cuban spirit and soul.