I'd always been a great fan of George Orwell.

But at the same time I went down into the mines with working miners who are still young men, younger than I am, who are aware that their working life is coming to an end and they feel suddenly cut off.

I'd always been a great fan of George Orwell.

I've always been struck by how unsuspicious people are in general, if you tell them what you're about.

The great thing about being a writer is that you are always recreating yourself.

I have another Russian idea, too, with a place and a period, so I guess I have enough to keep me busy for quite some time, especially considering that I'm such a slow writer.

The government is shutting down the coal industry, they say it's cheaper to draw nuclear power off the French grid and cheaper to buy coal from Colombia.

What's wonderful is to read the different translations - some done in 1600 and some in 1900 - of the same passage. It's fascinating to watch the same tale repeated in such a different way by two different centuries.

There is a huge antipathy in England between the north and the south, the working class and the owning class.

The fact is that I loved being in England.

Then there was the whole concept of coal mining, which is a culture unto itself, the most dangerous occupation in the world, and which draws and develops a certain kind of man.

Most people - and particularly people whose lives have nothing to do with books at all - are intrigued by the idea that somebody wants to listen to them and get it right.

I feel very bad about getting things wrong.

I hate to be categorized.

I never thought I would just be doing Arkady books.

Then years back, when I moved to California, I happened to see a book about fashions of 19th-century Victorian England, only four pages of which was devoted to the dress of the working class.

If you take the contempt some Americans have for yuppies and multiply it by 10 you might come close to understanding their attitude towards the City, as they call it - London, the people of the south.

I'm very aware when I'm speaking to the English of how flat my Mid-Atlantic American voice is.

I've got a book of poetry by the bed, one of these big collections that goes back to the Greeks and Romans.

I had to be sure we were doing something tasteful.

My stepfather had a connection with The Second City and told me I should go there. I woke up in a cold sweat one night and said, 'I'm moving to Chicago.' That's how I went to Second City.

You do tend to miss that repetition of day in and day out in a restaurant. I would like to open someplace where I can get back in touch with that side of my restaurant background. It is something we have plans to do and not sure how or when, but it is not too far away.

The Church must introduce the individual Christian into an encounter with Jesus Christ and bring Christians into His presence in the sacrament.

The framers of our Constitution meant we were to have freedom of religion not freedom from religion.

Gardening always has been an art, essentially.

Performance capture is a tool that young actors will need in the next 10, 20 years. It's on the increase, as you say. It's not going away.

The best definition of man is: a being that goes on two legs and is ungrateful.

I like to provoke. I'm very French.

A memoir is an invitation into another person's privacy.

I came to architecture from building. Because my father was a builder, everybody was - and is - a builder in my family.

No one has a closest friend in Hollywood.

Wake up early everyday so that while others are still dreaming, you can make your dreams come true.

I know people don't think I work.

For whatever reason, maybe it's because of my story, but people associate Livestrong with exercise and physical fitness, health and lifestyle choices like that.

Jihad expands Islam's domain by any means available.

I don't get recognized much, and am very happy with that. The fans I have met have all been delightful.

If we had made it clear from the very beginning that we were not going to tolerate another nuclear power on the face of the earth, and had done it in Korea, where we could have accomplished it militarily, if necessary, I would put a stop to it and would have put a stop to it there.

Every day, I just thank the universe that I am as lucky as I am. Because, I went through periods of time when I didn't have a single bit of work. Months and months where I was auditioning all the time. I mean, all the time, and nothing was happening.

Acting was a slow-burn thing. I found it was something I really, really liked doing, but it wasn't until my third year at drama school that I actually thought, 'Oh, right, I'm trained for this now; I'd better see if I can do it.'

We have a network of contacts, where there are very few boards where we can't reach out to the CEO or key board members.

In driving one assumes the danger of destroying life beginning with ones own.

If there is a country that has committed unspeakable atrocities in the world, it is the United States of America.

Multiple cat households are a good thing.