And I was very interested in the priesthood.

So nonetheless given the importance that was placed on sport in Australia, I wanted to be part of that scene, particularly since I had felt very strongly in my early schooling being marginalised even in the Catholic school.

And I was very interested in the priesthood.

And I definitely wanted to be a writer, but I felt a duty now, having used up those educational resources, I felt a duty to the church and my parents to become a priest.

So I remember both medicine, because I frequently sick, particularly with asthma for which there was no proper treatment then, and in religion I had a strong sense of there being a patriarchy.

I must apologise because I know all writers have memories of being on the outer because it's the children on the side of the playground who become the dangerous writers.

And I think my sexuality was heavily repressed by the church, by the, you know, the design of the mortal sins.

And it is a folly to try to craft a novel for the screen, to write a novel with a screen contract in mind.

I was never any good at cricket thought I love it as a, as a sort of mystery.

You know, so I was a weird eccentric kid but I did believe in the power of the word and of the word being made flesh I suppose, which again I suppose came from my temperament as well as my upbringing.

I thought I'd definitely be a writer, whatever I did.

So I was very close to ordination. I was delighted to be ordained a deacon, which is the last step between, before becoming a priest. But then it all fell apart.

In a way Australia is like Catholicism. The company is sometimes questionable and the landscape is grotesque. But you always come back.

My brother arrived some months after my father left. Um, and he ah, was thus eight years younger than me and it was um, you know, it was such a time that my mother probably had people wondering was it his.

And I liked pluralist Australia. I got a taste for pluralist Australia. I like, I like Australians and I can't believe that they're going to go to hell because they tell a good dirty joke, you know.

But I was also a brat. I used to belong to a gang that went looking for fights with other gangs.

Um, what I found though about the Christian Brothers is this: that they were certainly muscular.

But in practice Australia - the pluralism of Australia - sorry the sectarianism to an extent stopped at the time you took your uniform off after coming home from school.

Australia integrated the - brought on the ships and unleashed in the society the dogs of sectarianism, which had existed in other places - in Glasgow, in Liverpool and of course in Ireland, north and south.

And so um, I knew that I really didn't want to be a priest and didn't want to be a celibate, though I could probably manage it. Um, and um, ultimately I left.

Thomas was my true name but everyone knew me as Mick, except my mother, who knew me as definitely Michael.

And I found both literature and the church very dramatic presences in the world of the 1950s.

Personal finances are like peoples personal health crucial and tragic to the sufferer but tedious to the listener.

The dogs were really keening now like Irish widows.

We all have two things in common, no matter who we are: We were born and we are going to die.

I think every culture - you can call it an American Ronin, a medieval knight errant, you could talk about 'Shane.' There is an archetype that I think is actually common to a lot of cultures, and even the Clint Eastwood stuff was probably as influenced by the Japanese stuff, and yet done by an Italian.

Films are a whole new world that I'm excited to explore. But being on stage is very close to my heart; it has given me a sense of belonging. I will always try to find a way to balance both.

I loved being in the room with Mamet as a director - he is the most generous, funny, delightful person to work for every day.

Girls come up to me and start crying. Or they're so nervous, they are shaking. Some have tried to sneak grabs of my abs and my butt!

But I do not believe that the world would be entirely different if there were more women leaders. Maybe if everybody in leadership was a woman, you might not get into the conflicts in the first place. But if you watch the women who have made it to the top, they haven't exactly been non-aggressive - including me.

Everything I say is true.

I am a Christian and I don't want there to be any confusion about what I believe or who I am.

So, maybe you don't see blues so much in Styx's music but it is definitely part of Tommy's early music.

The secret to a happy marriage Do whatever your wife tells you. Yes dear. And breathe.

When there's new growth bursting out all over, everything fresh, green, and flourishing, the plants are little rockets of success going off every time you look at them.

You hear about quality time a lot but I really think that quantity time with a person is really what strengthens a relationship. That's when you really get to know somebody. You get to know their strengths and their weaknesses and that brings you closer. That's what 'Time Is Love' is all about.

I believe that there's good content or bad content. You see interviews when somebody interviews a director of a movie that didn't perform well in the box office, and he says, 'The audience didn't understand my movie.' If people didn't go to buy the ticket, then you did the wrong movie.

We've been taught that the renaissance was one of the great golden ages of civilisation. The renaissance was not a golden age, it was the end of a golden age.

The ordinary man is involved in action the hero acts. An immense difference.

We only have a certain amount of energy for each day. If we use it for the wrong purpose, if we focus on the negative or dwell on whoever hurt us, then we're not going to have the energy we need for the right purposes.

'High Stakes' was a very bad movie that I was cast in as a lead.

I was a star in England, but I've never been a star in America. Now I am.

In sharp contrast to the idea that this stage of life is enviable, we hear high levels of anxiety about getting old, anxieties about health, mobility, access to facilities, simple routine care and attention.

All of my career has been an attempt to educate myself and get paid for it.

When I look back, some of the greatest people in the history of the world have created things where paths have never been with such resiliency.

But the indisputable fact is, a huge percentage of Obama's voters are basically wards of the state. There are millions of them, and they have no intention of voting for anyone who might want them to ever go out and work for a living - 'no matter what.'

Evolution is among the most well-established theories in the scientific community. To doubt it sounds to biologists as absurd as denying relativity does to physicists.

When you have a child, as anyone knows who has them, that's basically all you want to talk about.