You always think, "Oh, I'm sure I could have done that better." But generally speaking, I am very proud of this.

I prefer to be flippant about acting, just in case I'm rubbish.

Nothing else is as fulfilling as playing a part in which you are able to have a significant say in the creative process all the way through. How many actors get to do that? It's extremely rare.

For me, faith is more about aspiration than complacency - the smug satisfaction that other people find distasteful.

I like to think of myself as versatile, and I certainly have the most varied career, so I'm very, very lucky in that.

I'm on the verge of taking a stand.

Stories about vicars are always being told because they're at the heart of our society. Vicars touch all parts of the community and see life in all its extremity.

Obviously I'd love to have kids and all that. Luckily, as a man, there's not such an egg timer on it, but I'd like to be able to pick them up without Nurofen first.

I'm unhappy as Dylan Thomas was, because I'm not, but I've had my brushes with sadness.

Somehow I find it easier to inhabit characters if they are a little bit pathetic. I do seem to have an affinity with pathetic people.

If you're actually being paid to be miserable, and to be as miserable as you can be, that's a very fortunate thing, if you're prone to occasional lapses of spirit.

You could get crickets to pop out of a book as a little, little girl, but now you have to relearn it? Well, children can do so many things until they're told they can't.

If the novels are still being read in 50 years, no one is ever going to say: ‘What’s great about that sixth book is that he met his deadline!’ It will be about how the whole thing stands up.

Confidence is the mark of a hopeful disposition.

Every time I do it at least proves I can still do it.

I wanted to be a quarterback. I used to like Johnny Unitas, the old quarterback for the Colts.

Expecting perfection from ourselves or others is not what holiness is about.

I hate myself, and I want to die

Real suffering bravely borne, melts even a heart of stone. Such is the potency of suffering. And there lies the key to Satyagraha.

I believe God weeps over - over death. Jesus wept at the grave the Lazarus. In the Bible, Jesus weeps at death.

What we have not named as a symbol escapes our notice.