My plays are made up of long monologues, which is similar to prose working with the language.
I travel abroad constantly on book promotion and research, and the Internet is invaluable to me for accessing U.K. news in places such as America, which most of the time hasn't heard of England.
There is no defense against adverse fortune which is so effectual as an habitual sense of humor.
This freedom of political discussion on the highest level is something which Western civilization has in common with that of classical antiquity, but with no other.
Knowledge which is divorced from justice, may be called cunning rather than wisdom.
I find the earth to be a place of misery in which I am surrounded by the conformity that kills society.
I have this terrible dark side to my personality, which playing tennis keeps at bay.
The true picture of the past flits by. The past can be seized only as an image which flashes up at the instant when it can be recognized and is never seen again.
The only thing that seemed to me I could do in such a way that no one else could was acting. I thought, I can be a doctor, but there's going to be someone else who is just as good or better. I can be a lawyer, which I still sometimes think I would love to be, but I think there's someone who can do it just as good or better.
The past is not dead, it is living in us, and will be alive in the future which we are now helping to make.
If my kids were to make a talking doll of me as a mother, one of my recorded phrases would be 'I will throw that in the trash.' 'If you don't put that down right now, I will throw that in the trash.' It's very funny to hear myself say certain things - like noticing which phrases become the most popular to use.
Should we attempt border security first, which I believe we should, we still need to face the fact that comprehensive reform is necessary. This must include a guest worker program and dealing with the 11 million people who are here today that are contributing to our economy.
Los Angeles survives on that which is unpredictable. The unexpected courses through its very veins.
I do that mostly because I believe that the fantasy business is in terrible trouble right now, for several reasons, not the least of which being the almost Democrat vs. Republican mentality of readers on the Internet.
The active and abandoned tailings ponds I have photographed, for example, are strangely beautiful - yet they are also chock full of cyanide, which is used in the recovery of microscopic particles of gold from the waste tailings of copper mines.
By not caring too much about what people think, I'm able to think for myself and propagate ideas which are very often unpopular. And I succeed.
Keeping one's eyes open, listening, watching, being quiet, adopting some of the techniques of the psychoanalyst in talking to people, will bring you that surface from which something more comes.
I was always cutting dialogue out when we were rehearsing, and when I produced movies, too. I felt that people don't say things in life - they act, they do things. I always wanted my characters doing, rather than saying what they were doing - which was redundant.
A romance novel is more than just a story in which two people fall in love. It's a very specific form of genre fiction. Not every story with a horse and a ranch in it is a Western; not every story with a murder in it is a mystery; and not every book that includes a love story can be classified as a romance novel.
There are really two types of laughter on the part of the spectator. There is the laughter of recognition - which means seeing things you're familiar with and laughing at yourself. But there's also hysterical laughter - a way of dealing with the things we see that upset us.
There is no pain equal to that which two lovers can inflict on one another. This should be made clear to all who contemplate such a union. The avoidance of this pain is the beginning of wisdom, for it is strong enough to contaminate the rest of our lives.
Capitalism is at least tolerable, which cannot be said of Socialism or Communism.
As I passed along the side walls of Westminster Abbey, I hardly saw any thing but marble monuments of great admirals, but which were all too much loaded with finery and ornaments, to make on me at least, the intended impression.
Passion for fame: A passion which is the instinct of all great souls.
At eighteen our convictions are hills from which we look; at forty-five they are caves in which we hide.
I am often asked which of my films has come closest to my own ideal of performance, and I always answer, 'Educating Rita.'
My childhood beliefs became so much a part of me that even today I find myself automatically living by a personal standard of conduct which can only be explained as resulting from my religious training.
The era during which only governments could put hardware on the Moon is coming to an end. There are 26 private teams competing for the $30 million Google Lunar X-Prize - to be awarded for sending a robotic spacecraft to this nearby world that can roam at least 500 meters, and send back data such as a photo.
The most dangerous area is the centre, which has to be either attacked or defended in football, and it's the same in chess.
It's the South that maintains the idea that they're different, which is interesting because nobody else really cares.
How often things occur by mere chance which we dared not even hope for.
There is in the DNA of the Italians a bit of madness, which in the overwhelming majority of cases is positive. It is genius. It is talent. It's the masterpieces of art. It's the food, fashion, everything that makes Italy great in the world.
I know there are some labels that put out music for art's sake, but I don't know which ones.
I'm just about to move to a place that you can only get there by rowing a boat across a loch, which I'm thoroughly looking forward to it. It's not got electricity or anything.
As parents, we need to send our kids back to 'old-fashioned' outdoor summer camps, which have been on the decline as the demand for sports and academics-based camps has risen. We need to fight budget cuts to public parks programs and resist closures of public swimming pools and playgrounds.
Perfection is a trifle dull. It is not the least of life's ironies that this, which we all aim at, is better not quite achieved.
