You can't say you want things to be simple and then in the next breath ask me to be honest.

Every writer has to find their own way into writing.

People can say what they like about the eternal verities, love and truth and so on, but nothing's as eternal as the dishes.

New Zealand is the only country I know well enough to write about. It can sometimes lead to complications.

I don't want to die, really. I'm interested in what happens next, so I've got to keep on.

When you are reading, someone has done a lot of work on your behalf, someone has had ideas and has then written and corrected and improved them so that they can be shared.

By the time ordinary life asserted itself once more, I would feel I had already lived for a while in some other lifetime, that I had even taken over someone else's life.

Will you still love me when I'm a monster?

At this stage I am not involved with young adults as closely as many other writers. My children are grown up and my grandchildren are still quite young.

I've never actually been a fighter myself - fighting tires me out and I'm not an efficient fighter anyway - but I have certainly seen other people have great complicated goes at one another.

I hope I am not too repetitive. However, coming to terms with death is part of the general human situation.

Look within, There is no difference between yourself, Self and Guru. You are always Free. There is no teacher, there is no student, there is no teaching.

There is no such thing as divine law enforced by mankind. Cosmic laws are self-sustaining mechanisms that do not require our assistance to function.

The doctrines of the Bible are often not clothed in the language of strict truth, but in that which was fittest to convey to a rude and ignorant people the practical essentials of the doctrine.

I never expected to be Defence Secretary. It's a great privilege.

Love is finding someone better than you are, and holding on for dear life

We may divide characters into flat and round.

Whenever I go to New York I try to soak up as much live music as I can, including as many nights at the opera as I can manage.

Let none turn over books, or roam the stars in quest of God, who sees him not in man.

To say you loved a person. / To say that person no longer exists. / A tragic flawed fate going on and on and on.

I say I’m not shy, but… Acting is a very vulnerable experience, and you’ve got to be really confident to put yourself out there to be judged.