Generally, we admire the thing we are not.

Hell, I am young. I am free. My teeth are clean. The sun shines. To hell with everything else

They are just 100 per cent bear, whereas human beings feel we're not 100 per cent human, that we're always letting ourselves down. We're constantly striving towards something, to some fulfilment.

I've never had any illusions about being a lead actor in films, because lead actors have to be of a certain kind. Apart from the beauty of looks and figure, which I cannot claim to have, there's just a particular kind of ordinary-Joe quality that a film star needs to have.

The service took place on one of those afternoons that occur only in the past.

You can't just say there is a god because the world is beautiful. You have to account for bone cancer in children

There is something in the American project, something in simple American oratory, something in the hope and idealism of this frustrating and contradictory nation that still makes my spirits soar and my heart leap with optimism and belief. If only they understood how to make a cup of tea.