We'll be back. I promise you that.

We'll be back. I promise you that.

I mean I think children love the idea that there are different viewpoints and different words for things and different worlds. And the more that they pretend to be other people, the harder it is for them to hate them and misunderstand them when they grow up.

It would've been hard to do something else, to as it were, run away from the circus and become an accountant.

At heart, this job is about continuing to make great theatre for the people of Sheffield - a city I've known and loved since childhood.

I'm not very good at relaxing. Reading's the main thing. On the bus, on the tube, on the loo. Literally all the time. I mean, I don't think there's a moment of the day when I wouldn't be if I was left alone.

I did start reading quite young but I was always read to by my parents, who are both actors. Bedtime stories from when I was about two/three to when I was about 15. In fact they didn't stop until I eventually kind of kicked them out of my bedroom.

I'm lucky enough to work with, I think, the greatest writer there's ever been, Shakespeare. Whose collected works would always be under my pillow if I was only ever allowed one book to keep, and who never bores me.

Books don't exist unless you read them. And it's a two way process - you write the book as you read it and you fill in the gaps. You discover it and you put the marks together and without you doing it they're just marks.

I absolutely love working with my dad because there is such an ease about it, and I also love his company.

I am a coward, basically, but one of the things about acting is that you are always putting yourself through yet another test.

I really do think the things that make our society what it is are under threat. It should be about everyone having the potential to be what they're going to be.

I usually play toffs and soldiers, with a sideline in mass murderers.

I'm rather proud of having been a trainspotter.

If you play a part that's been done before, on stage for instance, you feel like you're carrying a torch and staggering under the weight of it for a bit and then passing it on to somebody else.

Most actors are socialists, aren't they?

Most good art is left wing. It's a moot point whether there is any good right-wing art.

My one remaining professional ambition is to read the shipping forecast. I live in hope.

Of course 'Hamlet' is a debate about the nature and morality of revenge and whether it is right to do something to assuage your angry feelings.

Stamps from Afghanistan are hilarious. You can tell when the revolutions are because suddenly they stop having pictures of the mullahs and the independence monument and they start having fish on them.

The idea that if you are very clever you shouldn't be an actor would be laughable in Russia.

What I do believe is theatre is a medium with a peculiar ability to air vital issues.

When people say, 'If I had my life over again I wouldn't do anything different,' well, I'd do everything differently just for the variety.

When you are in a bad production there are two things you can do. You can do your best or you can leave. I chose to do the third thing which was sulk.

While we have made great progress in increasing funding for veterans' benefits, we still have a long way to go in fully meeting the promise to our veterans.

The promise of equal educational opportunity envisioned by the Brown decision remains unfulfilled.

It is rare that one can see in a little boy the promise of a man, but one can almost always see in a little girl the threat of a woman.

The headline is the most important element of an ad. It must offer a promise to the reader of a believable benefit. And it must be phrased in a way to give it memory value.

How can you tell somebody whose is pursuing happiness that they're somehow not American when that was the very first promise that America made?

To honor our national promise to our veterans, we must continue to improve services for our men and women in uniform today and provide long overdue benefits for the veterans and military retirees who have already served.

I think there is a good deal of promise in those discussions as well. I think there is a range of matters that might be discussed between NATO and Russia that can provide a mechanism for talking through these issues, a way to give reassurance on these issues.

You can't substitute promise after promise with known violators of prior promises at the expense of protecting ourselves or setting an example.

If you look closely enough, amid the merciless and the bitter, there is always the chance that you may find comfort and the promise of something good.

You give me nothing during your life, but you promise to provide for me at your death. If you are not a fool, you know what I wish for!

Please give me some good advice in your next letter. I promise not to follow it.

I made a promise to myself to be kinder to other people.

Closing the gap for women entrepreneurs should be a priority for the federal government - and yet the Small Business Administration has failed in their promise to women business owners.

We're saying no changes for Medicare for people above the age of 55. And in order to keep the promise to current seniors who've already retired and organized their lives around this program, you have to reform it for the next generation.

When did the future switch from being a promise to a threat?

The promise given was a necessity of the past: the word broken is a necessity of the present.

Love is free; to promise for ever to love the same woman is not less absurd than to promise to believe the same creed; such a vow in both cases excludes us from all inquiry.

Truth is not a matter of fact but a state of harmony with progress and hope. Enveloped only in its wings will we ever soar to the promise of our greater selves.

The U.N. can be very frustrating and at times impotent, but it can also be a valuable forum for discussion and resolution of world problems. We should not walk away from it just because it's failed to live up to its promise.

Yeah, it's tough being smart and sexy, too. I have to say, I'm really not that attractive. Until I met my husband, I could not get a date. I promise you it's true. My husband Jeff Richmond saw a diamond in the rough and took me in.

I also want to draw attention to the responsibilities that people have to live up to their election promises and to live up to the votes that were cast by the people of Wales, in the General Election, in the expectation that we would deliver this promise.

When the great promise of the Spirit was fulfilled on the day of Pentecost, it was fulfilled not in reference to the apostles only.

Science reckons many prophets, but there is not even a promise of a Messiah.

I will know how to hold you just by the look in your eye, I will never forget - not even on the day that I die. This is a promise of my passion for you, smile at me and make it true.

Dream lofty dreams, and as you dream, so you shall become. Your vision is the promise of what you shall one day be; your ideal is the prophecy of what you shall at last unveil.