People are much more interesting than people realise.

The English can laugh and at the same time strike you down, without the least compunction. It is the secret of their success as a nation.

I just wanted to be an ordinary, middle-class person. When I was at Cambridge I made great efforts to lose the last remnants of my cockney accent.

There is no humiliation worse than the consciousness of a wasted life. It stains the spirit, forestalls hope, and destroys any motive for action or change.

You don't have to be brought up in a grand house to have a sense of the past, and I truly believe that there are certain people to whom or through whom the territory - the place, the past - speaks.

I don't believe necessarily the past is in the past. It's eternal, it's all around us.

Every book for me is a chapter in the long book which will finally be closed on the day of my death.

The endless chatter of this journey had wearied me.

Yes, I have inherited the past because I have acknowledged it at last? And, now that I have come to understand it, I no longer need to look back.

I believe that the gods themselves are frightened of the world which they have fashioned.

One can forgive Shakespeare anything, except one's own bad lines.

I feel very, very thankful to have the family that I do.

There is far more misunderstanding of Islam than there is, I think, of the other religions of the world. So many things are said of it by those who do not belong to that faith.

I give myself strength by staying away from any music.

Most of us did not learn when we were young that our capacity to be self-loving would be shaped by the work we do and whether that work enhances our well-being.

...the true spirit of gastronomic joylessness. Porridge fills the Englishman up, and prunes clear him out.

I think it's every artist's dream to create something that will endure, something that people will listen to until there are no more people on earth to listen to things.

You have two people who I would classify as extremists. Donald Trump because of his behavior and Ted Cruz because of his views, leading the Republican Party.

Rank imperialism and warmongering are not American traditions or values. We do not need to dominate the world.

It never cost a disciple anything to follow Jesus; to talk about cost when you are in love with anyone is an insult.

I knew I wasn't a baseball writer. I was scared to death. I really was afraid to talk to players, and I didn't want to go into the press box because I thought I was faking it.