By the time I went up to Cambridge, I was extremely quiet and well behaved, although I now meet people who remember me as not like that at all.

I've been trying to garden all my life - it just happens that I haven't had a big garden...until the past few years.

I enjoyed the whole process of learning and was always happy when autumn came and school or college started up again.

All writers behave badly. All people behave badly.

All the people I have written about remain with me - perhaps they are my closest friends.

Everybody is vulnerable through love of their children. Hostages to fortune.

The young Dickens was so alive, so self-confident, so funny.

He saw the world more vividly than other people, and reacted to what he saw with laughter, horror, indignation, and sometimes sobs.

Being himself was more exhausting than impersonating a stage character.

He could take on anything and everything, it seemed, rather than leave himself time to reflect on his dissatisfaction with his life and what he might do about it.

I always try to travel light.

If you neglected to warn Djetth beforehand that you were going to shoot him down, Your Highness, he may consider you in breach of contract...

Don't just create a change for yourself, be a centre of change to others.

Unfortunately, in some parts of the country, some kids are taught at an early age that being different is somehow bad or wrong or worthy of ridicule.

I'm one of those people who have everything in their purses.

Unless what you say benefits the other person, don't say it.

I was amazed and upset by the looks I got just walking around the studio... It illuminates the ugliness and the beauty that exists within each of us, and that's what this story represents to me.

The rich want good wine, the poor, plenty of wine

I don’t know if this is statistically right, but I’m assuming I have the most Grammys of anyone my age, but I haven’t won one against a white person.

Barack Obama has injected fresh momentum into efforts - stalled for a decade - to bring about nuclear disarmament.

If you are honest, you will live life safely. But if you are dishonest, you will get hurt.