I was only operating at about 80% of my capacity.

When I was playing I felt tired all the time. My recovery period was a lot longer than the other players. They'd be ok after an hour - I'd have to stay in bed till the next session.

It's been a long road back to health and fitness for me. I am just glad to have been given the opportunity to do what I love most.

It was like falling off a building and suddenly, bang, you hit the bottom. The first time it happened was on an ordinary day at home. I was taking down some curtains. I took one step, turned around, took another step and then I fell and hit my head hard on the rowing machine.

I was this guy who'd been racing around down there, on that field in 1999, running straight over people, scoring tries, winning games, having fun. And I ended up so sick I couldn't even run past a little baby.

I thought about dying whenever I got bad news about other people.

I was on dialysis for 18 months before the transplant, so it was important I tried to look ahead to days like my comeback this Saturday. You need those big goals to drive you on.

I am very excited to be here in Wales and look forward to putting on the Cardiff Blues shirt.

The biggest thing for me is just to get out on that field. Just to do that will be incredible.

I was diagnosed with the illness right before the 1995 World Cup.

How do I take a step? How do I lift my foot off the ground, move it through the air a little bit and then bring it down? I had to teach myself to walk again.

It's a really exciting time to be involved in Welsh rugby.

I was only operating at about 80% of my capacity.

Towards the end of 2003 it was hard to get through training - and the darkest point was when a doctor told me there was a possibility I could end up in a wheelchair.

Each haka has its own interpretation, but you have to make sure you are in unison with your team-mates; the haka should be a proper war cry.

For me to get through the toughest periods in my life, I had to look within to find the energy to do it. I don't give up. Never have. Never will.

I always say to people that you have never seen the best of me, and that's what I mean - I've never been fully fit.

I have a stab wound on my left hip and one on my thigh and a slash mark across my right calf. I have a bottle stab wound on my left calf.

I have crooked toes from wearing boots that didn't fit me because that's all I could afford as a kid.

I went to a boarding school with a strong Maori tradition, where we were taught all about the haka.

It annoys me when people who don't know what they're talking about boo the referee.

It was in 2003 that I realised there was no choice but to have dialysis treatment - by the time of the World Cup that year, I could barely walk. A year later, I finally had a kidney transplant.

Looking back, my whole life seems so surreal. I didn't just turn up on the doorstep playing rugby; I had to go through a whole lot of things to get there.

Until 1998, I worked in marketing at ASB bank. I loved it.

Many times when youre a tourist you can just stay on the surface and not really experience the place youre visiting which will probably leave you disappointed. Everywhere has something interesting its just about being curious enough to find it and scratch where you have to scratch and stay longer and walk further.

I was shocked when I moved to Sydney how very few indigenous people I came across. And so when I go to places like Maroubra or Redfern or Waterloo or Erskineville, I feel more at home because of the people I'm around - anywhere I can see a face that reflects someone that looks like my family, I feel much more at home.

I think e-mail is representative of our fast food mentality in the United States, where everything has gotten faster and faster, and we're required to respond to inputs more quickly with less time for thought and reflection. I believe that we need to slow down.

Christ was God in human flesh, and He proved it by rising from the dead.

There is nothing more distressing or tiresome than a writer standing in front of an audience and reading his work.

I got to go back and perform 'God Made Girls' on 'The Voice,' which was awesome. I also got invited to sing on the 'Grand Ole Opry,' which was another unbelievable moment.

Promoting the use of sustainable and renewable rainforest products can help to stop rainforest devastation. The rainforests are much more valuable alive than cut or burned, providing a steady supply of medicinal plants, fruits, nuts and oils.

People will always choose more money over more sex.

As an actor, it easy to be so self-critical, saying to yourself, 'Am I good enough? Am I good looking enough? Am I smart enough?'

I think, at times of stress, you have to trust the pillars of democracy.

In every conversation I've had - with housewives in Mumbai, with middle-class people, upper-class, in the slums - everyone says there is an underlying consciousness of karma. That people believe in karma - that what you're putting out is going to come back. If I do something to you, the energy of it is going to come back to me in the future.

Adventure upon all the tickets in the lottery, and you lose for certain; and the greater the number of your tickets the nearer your approach to this certainty.

It might sound glib, but in a sense, as an actor I'm a journalist and a psychologist recording life and truth.

You see, some non-Catholic friends of mine have questioned the depth of my faith because of the fact that I have a good education.

You spend your whole lifetime in your occupation, actually making life clever, easy and convenient for white people. But when you have to get transportation home, you are denied an equal accommodation. Our existence was for the white man's comfort and well-being; we had to accept being deprived of just being human.

I've never felt fallow in the sense that there's been no work.

Life's philosophy, hm... I just say, 'Do what you do and have fun doing it and try not to be too miserable.'

The rules of evidence in the main are based on experience, logic, and common sense, less hampered by history than some parts of the substantive law.

The faster the word sticks to the thought, the more beautiful is the effect.

I've had so much plastic surgery, when I die they will donate my body to tupperware.

Civilization is merely an advance in taste: accepting, all the time, nicer things, and rejecting nasty ones.

And so with a boundless heart should one cherish all living beings.

I speak for Kashmiri pundits because injustice has been done to them, and the political discourse doesn't give them enough importance.

Neither current events nor history show that the majority rule, or ever did rule.