Generally, we admire the thing we are not.

Life is sometimes novel-shaped, mocking the efforts of those authors who, in an effort to make their novels life-shaped, spurn the easy symmetry and cheap resonance of reality.

We are not nouns, we are verbs. I am not a thing - an actor, a writer - I am a person who does things - I write, I act - and I never know what I'm going to do next. I think you can be imprisoned if you think of yourself as a noun.

I shouldn't be saying this, high treason really, but I sometimes wonder if Americans aren't fooled by our accent into detecting a brilliance that may not really be there.

Stop wanting wealth and fame and start wanting instead to do something well about which you are passionate

It's now very common to hear people say 'I'm rather offended by that'.

Sex without smiling is as sickly and as base as vodka and tonic without ice.