'Will you, sweet lad, come along with me?  My daughters shall care for you tenderly;  In the night my daughters their revelry keep,  They'll rock you and dance you and sing you to sleep.'

Who's riding so late where winds blow wild  It is the father grasping his child;  He holds the boy embraced in his arm,  He clasps him snugly, he keeps him warm.

"My son, why cover your face in such fear?"  "You see the elf-king, father?  He's near! The king of the elves with crown and train!"  "My son, the mist is on the plain."

'Sweet lad, o come and join me, do!  Such pretty games I will play with you;  On the shore gay flowers their color unfold,  My mother has many garments of gold.'

"My father, my father, and can you not hear  The promise the elf-king breathes in my ear?"  "Be calm, stay calm, my child, lie low:  In withered leaves the night-winds blow."

"My father, my father, o can you not trace  The elf-king's daughters in that gloomy place?"  "My son, my son, I see it clear  How grey the ancient willows appear."

'I love you, your comeliness charms me, my boy!  And if you're not willing, my force I'll employ.'  "Now father, now father, he's seizing my arm.  Elf-king has done me a cruel harm."

The father shudders, his ride is wild,  In his arms he's holding the groaning child,  Reaches the court with toil and dread. -  The child he held in his arms was dead.

Friendships are among the most fundamental of human needs.

I'm still secretly a bit of a punk. Love The Clash and a bit of the Pistols. I guess as I've got older I've chilled out a bit. But, my teenage angst is still stirring somewhere!

Sometimes the very best of all summer books is a blank notebook. Get one big enough, and you can practice sketching the lemon slice in your drink or the hot lifeguard on the beach or the vista down the hill from your cabin.

There is hardly a pioneer's hut which does not contain a few odd volumes of Shakespeare. I remember reading the feudal drama of Henry V for the first time in a log cabin.

I actually played violin on 'E.T.' I used to be a violinist.

Waiting for me in Stockholm will be a personal assistant - Katrina from the Ministry for Foreign Affairs - as well the secretary of the Swedish Academy. They'll help us with our things and take us to our hotel. From the moment I arrive, I'll always be together with the other two laureates.

Here's the thing, back in the day, a lot of guys would make fun of me, that I would sing and dance, that I was a cheerleader. But I kept my head on straight. I had goals.

When you begin to worry, go find something to do. Get busy being a blessing to someone; do something fruitful. Talking about your problem or sitting alone, thinking about it, does no good; it serves only to make you miserable. Above all else, remember that worrying is totally useless. Worrying will not solve your problem.

One of the reasons why fundamentalists are so aggressive in trying to promote fundamentalism is because deep down they know it's arbitrary. If you're comfortable with your belief you don't need to convince other people to agree with you.

I never really got to know Jimi as a person.

I'm not concerned with what people think of me.

Wine lovers have known for centuries that decanting wine before serving it often improves its flavor. Whatever the dominant process, the traditional decanter is a rather pathetic tool to accomplish it. A few years ago, I found I could get much better results by using an ordinary kitchen blender.

I don't know why we are here, but I'm pretty sure that it is not in order to enjoy ourselves.

There are two kinds of climbers, those who climb because their heart sings when they're in the mountains, and all the rest.

When you make a movie, a dramatization based on the real experience of a living subject, you can't airbrush that away into to a perfect movie arc.

Human beings should stick together. Honestly, if I see a red-haired person with blue eyes now, I say, 'Is your granny black?'

I am no longer in love with her, that's certain, but maybe I love her. Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

Obedience alone gives the right to command.

If a dictator takes up my ideas, the resulting town will survive the political system that commissioned it and stand as a social good. Besides, modernism rather than classicism has dominated the architecture of totalitarian regimes of both the left and right.

After Survivor, I was driving across country and moving to San Francisco, going to get a job interning at an ad agency. And then they asked me to read for this movie.

Sometimes we may ask God for success, and He gives us physical and mental stamina. We might plead for prosperity, and we receive enlarged perspective and increased patience, or we petition for growth and are blessed with the gift of grace. He may bestow upon us conviction and confidence as we strive to achieve worthy goals.

The closer Iraq approaches freedom and democracy, the more impediments and barriers the terrorists will erect.

You may make some mistakes - but that doesn't make you a sinner. You've got the very nature of God on the inside of you.

I learned a long time ago that fame and money is not a ticket to happiness.