In one way or another, President Obama's critics will dog him all the way to Oslo for the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony, and even his admirers will continue to have doubts about his accomplishments if not his promise.
To seek after any shape of God, and to assign a form and image to Him, is a proof of man's folly. For God, whosoever he be (if haply there be any other but the world itself), and in what part soever resident, all sense He is, all sight, all hearing: He is the whole of the life and of the soul, all of Himself.
Job was astonished at seeing Almighty God so intent on doing good to us that He seems to have nothing more at heart than to love us and to induce us to love Him in return.
The first song I learned on the guitar was a Kenny Chesney song called 'What I Need to Do'; it was just an easy song to play... and it was really cool to see that come full-circle a few years later and have him record a song that I was part of.
Jesus is absolutely at the centre of Western civilisation and part of my fascination with him is, why? What is it about this particular man and his story?
LL Cool J was a rapper-turned-actor, and I also relate to him because he was sort of a ladies' man and had a female fan base, but yet he's a positive dude. You never read about him getting into trouble or going to jail.
If Inigo Montoya were around now, he wouldn't need to storm the castle to bring his father's murderer to justice; the police would do it for him, and fewer people would have to die.
The more excited the rooster gets, the higher his voice goes. He's got a little bit of a Barney Fife quality to him.
It has been my honor to support and work with President Barack Obama, a man who has brought courage and character to the presidency. President Obama's strength of character leads him to do the right thing, even when it isn't the easy thing.
There is no living African writer who has not had to, or will not have to, contend with Achebe's work. We are either resisting him - stylistically, politically, or culturally - or we are writing toward him.
As many times as I've seen 'The Merchant of Venice,' I always take Shylock's side. For all the hatred that guy is shown, he has a reason to hate in return. He's treated cruelly. And it's tragic that he learns to be intolerant because of what others do to him.
In sports, you play up to the level of your opponent, and I did some of my best work with Chevy, and I'm so grateful to have worked opposite him. He was a handful and a challenge, and he made me step up to the plate.
To have the opportunity to work with Tiger Woods was just so awesome. I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the challenge. I enjoyed the good parts where he was winning. And I enjoyed the challenge to help him get better. But six years was enough.
If all things were made through Him, clearly so must the splendid revelations have been which were made to the fathers and prophets, and became to them the symbols of the sacred mysteries of religion.
I'm always up for music shows such as Jools Holland, but news more than anything, particularly Newsnight. And cookery: Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Rick Stein - it's down to him that I cook fish so much - and the great food alchemist Heston Blumenthal.
I think every artist needs a rule that's stupid but that helps him, like a deadline would.
I'm pretty caring, loyal and loving to those who are close to me. Two of my friends are from school, so I've known them for more than 30 years. My best friend, Paul Fisher, sat next to me in English when I was ten or 11. If you asked him, he'd say I was loyal. I don't think I've changed over the years.
I have never liked Morrissey, and I still don't. I think it's hilarious, actually, what things I've heard about him, what he's really like, and his public persona is so different. He's such an actor.
When I was working on 'Men of Honor' with Robert De Niro, there's a pipe that he has in the movie, and it took us about six weeks to find the right pipe for him to use and feel comfortable with. It was a great choice, because it was really about what worked with the camera at that time.
Growing up in wrestling, I would see my uncle put on his mask before he walked into auditoriums. The kids would run up to him and ask for autographs and pictures, and seeing him lacing up his boots in the locker room and putting on his mask before heading to the ring, that was all so real to me. That was the modern day superhero to me.
I like French films, Chabrol in particular. With him, you often get a skewed morality in which you sympathise with the person you shouldn't.
Behind every great man is his wife trying to keep him alive.
In America we tell our parents to bring their child home and put him or her in a crib; as they get older, children sleep in they own room not in Mom and Dad's room. What are we training them for? It's independence, because that's what being empowered is all about.
John Woo is a very nice and kind person; he gives almost no direction at all, trusting me to come up with the character. But when I think of him, I think of explosions!
If Marilyn Manson would write a song that says, 'Do your damn homework,' it would make the world a better place, and it wouldn't hurt him at all. And if he doesn't like it, to hell with him. He can come fight us - by the bicycle racks.
I was born at home in rural Kentucky, in 1942, in a house that my father Howard had built. He did most of the construction himself and built it on land that his father had given him when he married my mother Faye.
Working with Dudley Moore was so hilarious. I don't know how we got anything done because everybody was laughing so hard, but he was such a wonderful man, and he had a kindness and a musicality and a dearness to him that was triumphant.
I think Phil Dick was particularly interesting in that, first of all, he was a very modern man and a very modern thinker, but I don't know what demons drove him.
Now that I have a dog, I frequently have to take him out and get some exercise, which also gets me exercise.
In Bernie Sanders, I see a man saying that the emperor has no clothes while everyone around him insists they see clothes. Whether or not he makes it to the White House, I hope and pray that everyone hears the alarm he is sounding now; it may be the last voice we ever hear.
I'm sure my father had more to do with my career than I would like to give him credit for. I would love to think it was all me!
We are poor, feeble, and blind mortals when the eye of the Almighty looks through all worlds and by his power executes all things aright, and by his grace, he makes us all rich in Heavenly Gifts. In distress and in bereavements, we can look only to him. From mortals like ourselves we can derive no help.
Just because someone's dead doesn't mean it's over. My grandfather died more than 25 years ago, but I still think of him a lot and smell his smell.
Man seems to be the only animal whose food soils him, making necessary much washing and shield-like bibs and napkins. Moles living in the earth and eating slimy worms are yet as clean as seals or fishes, whose lives are one perpetual wash.
When I was a kid, we all knew who Niki Lauda was. He was a hero, a living legend in Germany. Everybody knows him.
A teenager usually wants to try to get people to notice him in some way, to feel like someone gives a damn. Me, all that attention, I just wanted to fade into the background. Be invisible. Disappear.
