There were so many wrongs piling up on both sides, so much of the past being dragged into the present, that living there was like carving the story of your life on to a sepulchral monument.

I had never really understood what an adventure life could be, if you followed your heart and did what you really wanted to do, which is what we must all do in the end.

It is one of the benchmarks of a culture I always think – the page at which it operates. A good way to measure it is to order a taxi and see how irate local people get if it is late.

They march into the future to the rhythm of the past.

You have no future when the past rules you.

I think that everyone has something that they will kill for.

It’s not until you’re older that you realise how important the things that happened to you when you were a kid are. Even things you only half remember.

Once they have dedicated themselves to a cause, women will fight to the end for it.

If peace came it would have to do so when there had been time to allow the hatred to grow out of people’s thinking.

It was your destiny - let us hope it will prove a glorious one.

When they laugh, it sounds like confetti.

Incredible experience, watching a baby birth on the internet. It's now my screensaver.

As solid rock remains unmoved by the wind, so the wise remain unmoved by blame and praise.

Most people are so busy living they neglect to take the time to ask why.

Simple minds, presumably, are the easiest to manage.

I'm rather uncomfortable with celebrity, to be honest.

I'm the happiest the saddest guy in the world can be.

Nothing shows our weakness more than to be so sharp-sighted at spying other men's faults, and so purblind about our own.