I've been in a position before where a president has turned to me in the Oval Office in a difficult moment, without any pleasantries, and said, 'I'm asking you as your president and Commander in Chief to take command of the international security force in Afghanistan.' The only response can be, 'Yes, Mr. President.'
Good planning is important. I've also regarded a sense of humor as one of the most important things on a big expedition. When you're in a difficult or dangerous situation, or when you're depressed about the chances of success, someone who can make you laugh eases the tension.
Certainly we know from our own experience how very difficult it is when you've lost an election that perhaps a lot of people were expecting you to win.
I quit flying myself last year and that was difficult for me because I enjoy it as much as playing golf. It was an adjustment sitting in the back of the plane, rather than at the controls, but I've grown accustomed to it and enjoy reading a book, doing some work or challenging my wife to a game of dominos.
Golf is difficult to get your personality over because you are such a bottle of concentration.
Spain is finding it very difficult to finance itself with sovereign debt risk premium so high.
If you've got to my age, you've probably had your heart broken many times. So it's not that difficult to unpack a bit of grief from some little corner of your heart and cry over it.
I find it very difficult to work with people I don't like; I can't do that.
Difficult times always create opportunities for you to experience more love in your life.
And trust, yes, which is important, but that is what I aim towards. Now that is difficult for some people, and with that desire to get things as good as possible, I would say that I'm probably regarded as quite prickly to work with.
When I write a song and come up with an arrangement and a vocal part, it's always a challenge trying to find a singer who can interpret it sort of the way that I hear it, and it's a very difficult thing to do. I mean, singing is like playing an instrument - everybody does it a little bit different - singing maybe even more so.
I leave to the militarists the difficult task of trying to explain to us how these wars have served to shape character or to promote the progress of civilization or to achieve the reign of justice on earth. So far, they have not come forward with the explanation.
I had not expected 'A Brief History of Time' to be a best seller. It was my first popular book and aroused a great deal of interest. Initially, many people found it difficult to understand. I therefore decided to try to write a new version that would be easier to follow.
They see me as being this Super Mom on TV who also can more than handle a difficult husband, and they assume I'm going to be just full of wisdom as a mother and wife myself.
Maker is extremely proactive and creative with their talent. They seem to have mastered the difficult task of giving attention to their smaller, growing channels while still being able to add value to their larger established channels - plus, with this partnership, I am one step closer to becoming a Disney princess!
We in Nigeria have seen just how difficult it is to get back stolen assets from the international financial system, such as banks that ought not have received those funds in the first place if even the most routine questions were asked.
And touring is difficult when everybody's heads aren't in the same place.
One of the big lessons I have learnt from my life is that things are never as difficult as they seem. When you actively plunge into it, you realize you can easily do it.
Crowds are the most difficult thing for me these days because I have to walk with my head down and my eyes averted. There's still that part of me that wants to hold my head up, make eye contact and smile.
I always find it easier to portray myself as being unlikeable and idiotic; to actually play a character that is likeable and engages the audience is far more difficult. It's a more subtle kind of challenge.
It's very difficult for my body to recover after workouts now that I'm older, so we have to keep them short, which means they're extremely difficult and intense. It sucks.
I think I mainly climb mountains because I get a great deal of enjoyment out of it. I never attempt to analyze these things too thoroughly, but I think that all mountaineers do get a great deal of satisfaction out of overcoming some challenge which they think is very difficult for them, or which perhaps may be a little dangerous.
The most difficult thing to do is drama.
I enjoy popularisation and I think I'm reasonably good at it. I also think it's a duty. It's just so pedagogically stupid to forget how difficult one found these ideas oneself to begin with.
I've been called many names like perfectionist, difficult and obsessive. I think it takes obsession, takes searching for the details for any artist to be good.
I'm more than open to hope, but I think men and women have a difficult time dealing with each other and often take the low road.
I'm so focused on trying to craft the story that I'm in my own little world with it and that process. The one reader I'm trying to please as I write is me, and I'm pretty difficult to please.
I've never crashed a wedding. When I was a kid I, of course, used to crash parties. Crashing a wedding is difficult though because you have to have the suit, and you have to have information in case someone catches you. You have to know at least some names and something.
After four or five different wars, I grew weary of that work, partly because in an open war, open to coverage, as Vietnam was, it's not that difficult, really.
The charge frequently leveled against poetry - that it is difficult, obscure, hermetic and whatnot - indicates not the state of poetry but, frankly, the rung of the evolutionary ladder on which society is stuck.
It's very difficult being an actor and being away for a lot of time, but my sons haven't complained too much too often.
The accent got lost somewhere along the way. I'm a little embarrassed about it. When I arrived in LA I assumed I'd be able to put on the American accent. It proved difficult so I had six months working with a dialect coach and it's become a habit.
The more unique your film is and unusual it is and difficult it is, the harder it is to get it financed. That's why a lot of good filmmakers are doing television. They do HBO movies.
Every generation has to ask difficult questions about what does it mean to follow Jesus.
In the Netherlands, we have had a difficult year and we are now getting out of this difficulty. So we have now growth prospects for 2014.
It is difficult to overstate the importance of the Civil Rights Act.
