What makes a good family? Well, I suppose obviously love. Love lubricated often I think by humor. I think a family that can laugh at each other and tease themselves and who are able to be jolly with each other I think is the key.

Thank you for your input; I can tell you are struggling towards being interesting.

Education is the sum of what students teach each other between lectures and seminars.

That one can love another of the same gender, that is what the homophobe really cannot stand.

Self pity is the worst possible emotion anyone can have. And the most destructive. It is, to slightly paraphrase what Wilde said about hatred, and I think actually hatred's a subset of self pity and not the other way around - 'It destroys everything around it, except itself.'

My secret is that I have never thought there is a secret to anything in life. Passion. Love. Drive. Work. Work. Work. Dull but true.

In a dung heap, even a plastic bead can gleam like a sapphire.