I'd always liked the idea that drama acts at its best as a kind of arena for debate, not just about the thing itself, but also producing aesthetic, stylistic, political and moral discussions.

I was born in 1961. Now I think the 16 years that elapsed between 1961 and the end of the wars is nothing. To a child growing up it felt like an eternity, an entirely different world.

I always want to do things that are different. I don't want to be doing the same thing, the same performance constantly, and it feels like most people tell you that they are the same. However different you feel might approach them.

I did decide that you have to put your name about a bit, and so, although I would have preferred to have never done publicity or an interview or a fashion shoot for a magazine or a chat show.

I would have loved to have met some former spies, but they don't readily advertise themselves unless they're not living in Moscow, and even then. I'm sure I've met some without realizing it.

I'm just a hired actor who was hired for a particular job, but I think one of the joys of reading the script was the way that the personal and the global are woven together.

It's taken me longer still to realize what a short span there is between those life experiences and the rest of your life. That's a job for the people who lived through it.

I've never had a huge circle of friends. I can't spread myself that thin and go 100 million miles an hour all the time. I choose to give truly of myself, entirely of myself, to the people I choose to do that with, and I can't do that with everyone.

Surely the job of fiction is to actually tell the truth. It's a paradox that's at the heart of any kind of storytelling.

As an actor, you ask yourself what you can do to put yourself in a position where you can play that role.

I don't consider 41 being in prime of life. Even if I conceived a child tomorrow I'd be 52 by the time it was 10. I'm not sure I'd have the energy, and I find that quite scary.

I never want to sort of put all the cards on the table all at once, because that's somehow there's always a journey to go on. There's always something to be revealed, in my mind, about characters.

I've never had a desire to be famous. Lots of actors are actually extremely shy. I have shy areas.

I'd always liked the idea that drama acts at its best as a kind of arena for debate, not just about the thing itself, but also producing aesthetic, stylistic, political and moral discussions.

All the great novels, all the great films, all the great dramas are fictions that actually tell us the truth about us or about human nature or about human situations without being tied into the minutia of documentary events. Otherwise we might as well just make documentaries.

I think one probably absorbs things like a sponge and things emerge without your always being aware of it.

The Jungian view of drama would be that it affects all of our imaginations and somehow taps into our hidden, ancient, primordial memories.

I don't have the energy or the mental security to get involved with all that. I think it's a good idea to be able to disappear into the story, so that the first thing the audience sees isn't you, but the part.

There's so much of, it could have been a very critical examination of what happened, and really the emotional lives of the people involved sort of carry the characters forward.

Our attitudes have changed a lot, really, and so there's a certain toughness about it.

My dad served in the Air Force as ground crew for several years, and doesn't really talk about it. I know that it's there. I think my main thing about direct or indirect experiences as near to home as it were is the idea of self-sacrifice really.

Years and years ago, when everyone knew that Pierce was going to be doing the job, they started selecting new people. I had this bizarre thing when I hadn't done many movies, and of going on for an interview.

He has such a patronizing tone and manner, and such a sarcastic sense of humor. I found him rather brutal, a kind of elegant brutality which appealed. No, I think he came pretty much off the page.

I read about this hotel that was great, down in the south of the island, not in a touristy area. I had no particular desire ever to go to Jamaica, but I thought, what the hell? Sounds nice. Let's go!

People will say that it's some kind of evasion, but I would never want to have a kid for me. I'd want to have the child for the child's sake, if that makes sense.

The space and light up there in Norfolk is wonderfully peaceful. I find myself doing funny things like gardening, and cooking, which I rarely do in London.

There is an ongoing debate about the reform of the U.N. system.

No matter how you cut it, this real debate on personal accounts is about the legitimacy of Social Security; it's not about the solvency of Social Security.

Information, usually seen as the precondition of debate, is better understood as its by-product.

Most of the debate over the cultures of death and life is about process. The debate focuses on the technology available to determine how we prolong life and how and when we end it.

The national debate on Social Security has been cheapened by demagoguery on all sides.

I fear that, in the end, the famous debate among materialists, idealists, and dualists amounts to a merely verbal dispute that is more a matter for the linguist than for the speculative philosopher.

As we begin this debate, I am confident that we will hear the supporters of this bill argue in the name of Ronald Reagan that this research is consistent with his long-held views about the sanctity of life.

Nothing ever gets settled in this town. a seething debating society in which the debate never stops, in which people never give up, including me. And so that's the atmosphere in which you administer.

A politician's goal is always to manipulate public debate. I think there are some politicians with higher goals. But all of them get corrupted by power.

What scared me in that debate is that it's not about the ownership rules at all. The vast majority of people don't even know what the rules say, to be perfectly candid. Name all six of them.

The job of the press is to encourage debate, not to supply the public with information.

While the political debate over abortion will continue for a very long time, the federal government can and should be doing more to support programs and services that provide women with better options.

Let me announce this to the American people tonight one of the best things about this debate, as a Democrat from Massachusetts, I have proposed eliminating, getting rid of the alternative minimum tax.

See that's a goal that I think it's very good in the debate to find out who the person is.

One of the most surreal moments in this election was after the third debate, when I heard a talking head say, Al Gore won on substance, on the issues. But you have to give the victory to Bush because he seems presidential.

I heard Dennis Kucinich say in a debate, 'When I'm president... and I just wanted to stop him and say, 'Dude.'

After two years of hard work and debate, Congress has passed a highway bill that will help fuel our economy by creating roughly 500,000 new jobs, as well as address many critical transportation needs in Ohio and the 18th Congressional District.

While the debate on the Patriot Act is far from over, it is important that all Americans continue in this dialogue and work together to ensure greater security for our nation.

Deliberation and debate is the way you stir the soul of our democracy.

The tension between "yes" and "no," between "I can" and "I cannot," makes us feel that, in so many instances, human life is an interminable debate with one's self.

The US constitution's First Amendment rights only cover Americans, but I believe that in a democracy the competition of ideas and free speech should combat beliefs that it does not agree with - more speech and debate, not censorship.

There was one point in high school actually when I was on the chess team, marching band, model United Nations and debate club all at the same time. And I would spend time with the computer club after school. And I had just quit pottery club, which I was in junior high, but I let that go.

This country is about, in my judgment, aggressive, open debate. There is an old saying: When everyone is thinking the same thing, no one is thinking very much.