I always have been optimistic about humanity's future. Always. Even at the most dismaying of times.

It is what you do from now on that will either move our civilization forward a few tiny steps, or else... begin to march us steadily backward.

The people who could do most to improve the situation of so many women and children are in fact, men.

And from the first moment that I ever walked on stage in front of a darkened auditorium with a couple of hundred people sitting there, I was never afraid, I was never fearful, I didn't suffer from stage fright, because I felt so safe on that stage. I wasn't Patrick Stewart, I wasn't in the environment that frightened me, I was pretending to be someone else, and I liked the other people I pretended to be. So I felt nothing but security for being on stage. And I think that's what drew me to this strange job of playing make-believe.

I've been in politics all my life. In 1945, I committed my first act of civil disobedience during the election campaign for the first post-World War II general election, when the Labour Party, to everyone's amazement, ousted the Conservatives. I refused to obey the instructions of a policeman, and as a result, almost got a belt around the ear, because those were the days when policemen could hit children and nobody cared, they thought it was probably good for them.

I began directing episodes, which was a great light every couple of months. We never short-changed our audience, but it became something that you had to work at rather than something that was a pleasure.

Violence is a choice a man makes and he alone is responsible for it.