Official truths are often powerful illusions.

Official truths are often powerful illusions.

I'm absolutely convinced of that. Israel is the representative of the United States in that part of the world. Its policies are so integrated with American policies that they use the same language.

The censorship is such on television in the U.S. that films like mine don't stand a chance.

We have an extreme rightwing government in this country, although it's called the Labour government.

Orwell is almost our litmus test. Some of his satirical writing looks like reality these days.

It's very clear that the Bush Administration is out of control. It contains some truly dangerous people.

Vietnam was as much a laboratory experiment as a war.

I grew up in Sydney in a very political household, where we were all for the underdog.

Not all the Americans in Iraq are those who torture and murder, or course they're not, I don't know how many are doing it, I know it is systematic throughout the United States military I think that's been revealed.

Classic nineteenth century European imperialists believed they were literally on a mission. I don't believe that the imperialists these days have that same sense of public service. They are simply pirates.

Two increasing themes which appear to dominate our listening, reading and watching lives are propaganda and 'national security', or manufactured war.

As you suggested I have in the following disputed certain passages, trusting you will do me the justice either to modify the same or add a note in the new edition stating that I dispute,' etc.

No individual can achieve worthy goals without accepting accountability for his or her own actions.

What is my calling? What am I supposed to do? I think running for office, public office, can be a divine calling. I mean, I've wrestled with that very question myself.

The cat is classic whilst the dog is Gothic - nowhere in the animal world can we discover such really Hellenic perfection of form, with anatomy adapted to function, as in the felidae.

I describe my plots as follows; A character is walking down the street when all of a sudden a piano falls on them. They spend the rest of the story digging out from under that piano. How they dig, how long and how well, this all depends entirely on the character.

Historians don't really like to carry on speculative debates, but you could certainly argue that the likelihood of a Soviet invasion of Western Europe was extremely, extremely low.

I'm a man's man. I go out climbing and live outdoors.

Invisible Boy was fun. Everybody else's character, they knew where they were at already as a superhero. But invisible boy's character, you kind of grow up with him within the movie.

Cherish your mistakes, and you won't keep making them over and over again. It's the same with heartbreaks and girls and everything else. Cherish them, and they'll put some wealth in you.

Everyone knows that there are some odors that send you directly back to memories of your childhood - odors from Christmas time and so forth.

There is a bit of a 'once a soap actor always a soap actor' thing, but I do think people still recognise talent. If you're good at something, then people have no choice but to accept it.

Faffing is good. It is an important part of life. Faffing is when we disconnect from the matrix and idle for a while, like a car. Our body and spirit know deep down that human beings were not made for constant toil so subconsciously creates space through the mechanism of faffing.

My self healing lies in praying for those who have harmed me.

Life is one big experiment.

It was not the part of His kindly love that he who was to praise God's divine generosity in regard to others should be compelled to condemn it in regard to himself.

The only thing that I know how to do as an actor, as a trained actor, is you can't villainize the character you're playing. Whether it's a fictional character or a real character. Because then you operate from that sort of negative point of view, and you can't humanize him.

Don't mark up the Library's copy, you fool! Librarians are Unprankable. They'll track you down! They have skills!

Life's fairly excruciating. Painful things happen. Every now and then, you drag yourself out of the stream and stand on the bank gasping for air. I think that's how I work.

One man with a head on his shoulders is worth a dozen without.

It's often said that costume designers are a faceless group of people. But we can contribute to fashion in a way that might be new and different.

In all seriousness, people think that it's the ideas that are important. Well, everyone has ideas, all the time. I tend to write mine down and remember them, but at some point you have to apply the bum to the seat and knock out about sixty five thousand words - that's how long a novel is.

I'm very confident that Nick Hornby always gets it right as a writer. He has the vernacular and passion. He is adroit and dry, and balances humor with the humanity of life.

That's what life is - you follow where your heart leads you - at least I do.

The world have payed too great a compliment to critics, and have imagined them men of much greater profundity than they really are.