I keep these songs in my head until I get behind the microphone. I never spend more than 30 or 40 minutes singing the vocal or it will sound mechanical. There are always mistakes, but it's about feeling more than being perfect.
I believe there are more urgent and honorable occupations than the incomparable waste of time we call suffering.
I often feel that when people have affairs, it has more to do with something they're searching for in themselves than anything else.
If human beings are perceived as potentials rather than problems, as possessing strengths instead of weaknesses, as unlimited rather that dull and unresponsive, then they thrive and grow to their capabilities.
What we learn only through the ears makes less impression upon our minds than what is presented to the trustworthy eye.
Here I am, safely returned over those peaks from a journey far more beautiful and strange than anything I had hoped for or imagined - how is it that this safe return brings such regret?
I would rather have peace in the world than be President.
I'd rather not have anything than be a liar.
Europe and the United States are better off extending a helping hand to those who know best rather than dictating to them an unfamiliar future.
The diseases which destroy a man are no less natural than the instincts which preserve him.
I feel more Irish than English. I feel freer than British, more visceral, with a love of language. Shot through with fire in some way. That's why I resist being appropriated as the current repository of Shakespeare on the planet. That would mean I'm part of the English cultural elite, and I am utterly ill-fitted to be.
Kids can learn a lot by seeing things rather than reading it.
Open your refrigerator, your freezer, your kitchen cupboards, and look at the labels on your food. You'll find 'natural flavor' or 'artificial flavor' in just about every list of ingredients. The similarities between these two broad categories are far more significant than the differences.
A crust eaten in peace is better than a banquet partaken in anxiety.
I think so. I can't think of anything that requires more finesse than comedy, both from a verbal and visual point of view.
Like wars, forest fires and bad marriages, really stupid laws are much easier to begin than they are to end.
We too often bind ourselves by authorities rather than by the truth.
Every time you read a poem aloud to yourself in the presence of others, you are reading it into yourself and them. Voice helps to carry words farther and deeper than the eye.
It is in Rousseau's writing above all that history begins to turn from upper-class honour to middle-class humanitarianism. Pity, sympathy and compassion lie at the centre of his moral vision. Values associated with the feminine begin to infiltrate social existence as a whole, rather than being confined to the domestic sphere.
If you play jazz, then you play with your fingers. If you're playing rock, you use a pick. There's really no rhyme or reason to that other than that's just the way it has been.
People respect you more if you just play and blow something out than if you take the easier road. That's how we think. You get more respect and people play harder for you. Just play till you blow it. Just play till it goes.
I think if you're writing about cricket, you're obviously writing about power, because cricket is such a loaded sport, much more so than soccer.
One area in which we can be certain mass immigration has an effect is housing. More than one third of all new housing demand in Britain is caused by immigration. And there is evidence that without the demand caused by mass immigration, house prices could be 10% lower over a 20-year period.
We loved with a love that was more than love.
I know just one thing is those guys, KG and everyone, they're hungry. They want it bad. Sam's the only one that's had that, has the ring. Other than him, everybody else over there, we want it bad.
There is etiquette in golf, but it's not any harder to learn than what to do at a dinner party. Actually, it's probably easier. And these days, there are a lot more women out there than there used to be. It's not like when I was young. I was always the only girl on the range.
Take a newspaper account of Waterloo or Trafalgar, with all the small advertisements: it seems much more real than reading about it in a history book.
Better be alone than in bad company.
Money isn't a major motivating force in my life. Nor is my profession. There are other things that I care more about than being an actor.
What is earnest is not always true; on the contrary, error is often more earnest than truth.
A world community can exist only with world communication, which means something more than extensive short-wave facilities scattered; about the globe. It means common understanding, a common tradition, common ideas, and common ideals.
Corruption is worse than prostitution. The latter might endanger the morals of an individual, the former invariably endangers the morals of the entire country.
We never used to blink at taking a leadership role in the world. And we understood leadership often required something other than drones and bombs. We accepted global leadership not just for humanitarian reasons, but also because it was in our own best interest. We knew we couldn't isolate ourselves from trouble. There was no place to hide.
To a billion people around the world surviving on just a dollar a day, the question of what to eat tonight is more about life and death than about recipes. The struggle of poor people around the globe weighs heavily on me, especially now that I am a mother, which is why I work with Oxfam.
Men's indignation, it seems, is more excited by legal wrong than by violent wrong; the first looks like being cheated by an equal, the second like being compelled by a superior.
They weren't interested in entertainment. They were tough. I learned one trick, which was to be quieter than they were until they had to look at you. It took a lot of agressiveness.
