People know they are lacking something, they are constantly wanting some kind of spiritual guidance.

There is no consensus even today on the merits of Napoleon - and certainly no agreement on the rights and wrongs of the origins of the First World War.

Men like Hitler and Stalin and their immediate lieutenants cannot plead in defence of their actions that these were justified by the accepted values of that time.

Prison is an expensive way of making bad people worse.

We, Britain and Germany, can neither of us be happy about our handling of the Iraq war.

Margaret Thatcher, growing up in a bombed and battered Britain, derived a distrust which has grown with the years not just of Germany but of all continental Europe.

It is normal for politicians in all countries to profess themselves the pupils of history, anxious to draw the right lessons from her teaching.

History provides no precise guidelines.

But Germany will always suffer, I fear, from the intensely dramatic character of the crimes of the Third Reich.

We should be wary of politicians who profess to follow history while only noticing those signposts of history that point in the direction which they themselves already favour.

We must admit that history is enjoyable to a large extent because it enables us to pass judgment on the past.

She wasn’t looking at herself in the glass, but out at a great silver moon hanging beyond a thin metal balcony that looked over the grey towers of a human city.

I would rather decline two drinks than one German adjective.

If Nietzsche is correct, that to shame a man is to kill him, then any honest attempt at autobiography will be an act of self-destruction.

We learn to believe by believing. We learn to love by loving. The practice of acting on a certain thing, even (or especially) when feeling is absent, embodies the entire "how" of growth.

This is what I like about life at sea. It’s one long voyage of discovery. Solid water! What will they think of next? Hopefully a pony who solves crimes.

I'm an actor, I worry about everything.

I've never sold my company or products.

Much of modern life is preventable chronic stress injury.

It's been very quiet, quite frankly. Nothing good, nothing bad.

The art of illusion is grace itself.