American democracy is the inalienable right to sit on your front porch, in your pyjamas, drinking a can of beer and shouting out 'Where else is this possible?' Which doesn't seem to me to be freedom, really.

Robert Vavra is one of these artists, part magician, part alchemist, who is able to create a series of photographs in unforgettable compositions. Only visible are the dunes, the blinding fields of flowers and the vast sky, the epic intimacy of Robert Vavra's vision.

I was irrevocably betrothed to laughter, the sound of which has always seemed to me the most civilised music in the world.

At the age of four with paper hats and wooden swords we're all Generals. Only some of us never grow out of it.

I'm convinced there's a small room in the attic of the Foreign Office where future diplomats are taught to stammer.

I had started by imitating a parrot, which is unusual, in that a parrot is supposed to imitate you. By taking the initiative you allow the parrot no alternative but to be itself, which proves again that attack is often the best defence.

Once we are destined to live out our lives in the prison of our mind, our duty is to furnish it well.