You're a wicked man." "Thank you. It's taken years of diligent practice.

Something in your voice tells me we approach the question of remuneration.

Empathize with stupidity and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot.

Mr Blawke always reminded me of a heron; I'm not sure why. Something to do with a sense of rapacious stillness, perhaps, and also the aura of one who knows time is on his side.

There's an old Sysan saying that the soup of life is salty enough without adding tears to it.

Torture is such a slippery slope; as soon as you allow a society or any legal system to do that, almost instantly you get a situation where people are being tortured for very trivial reasons.

My point has always been that, ever since the Industrial Revolution, science fiction has been the most important genre there is.

I remember being shocked when I discovered some of my school pals didn't have books in their homes. I thought it was like not having oxygen, or hot water.

I am, as I have always been, of the opinion that while the niceties of normal moral constraints should be our guides, they must not be our masters.

I've always loved Scotland, and I'm not a huge fan of big cities, to be honest. I like them to dip into for a bit, but I'm not sure I would want to live in one again.

In theory, I work an eight-hour day and a five-day week which means I can socialise with my pals who mostly have normal jobs like teaching and computer programming.

Not everything that is related to yoga is equally beneficial.

He's dreaming with his eyes open, and those that dream with their eyes open are dangerous, for they do not know when their dreams come to an end.

Bad news sells because the amygdala is always looking for something to fear.

The evil of one murder is infinite, and my guilt is like my beauty - eternal. I cannot be forgiven, for there is no one to forgive me for all I've done.

Life is pain, so live it up while you can.

The spontaneous is the most beautiful thing that can appear in a picture, but nothing in art appears less spontaneously than that.

When we bring the filmmaker, we bring somebody to help us elevate the material with those things, to help us do something different with all of those resources at their disposal.

Obama is a statist. He's an authoritarian. He doesn't want to govern; he wants to rule.

It is better to be honourable than be honoured.

The most sacred of the duties of a government [is] to do equal and impartial justice to all its citizens.