Well Brooke, I’ve always liked her, and when I was little I used to stay with Diana Ross, me and my brothers stayed with her for years and I never said, but I always had a crush on her.

But I will never stop helping and loving people the way Jesus said to.

There is no question of the benefits that opening a market of a billion people will bring to American businesses. But as I said last year, this will test China and the world trade system.

A severe though not unfriendly critic of our institutions said that the cure for admiring the House of Lords was to go and look at it.

As the poet said, ‘Only God can make a tree,’ probably because it’s so hard to figure out how to get the bark on.

I never prayed for no money, and I never prayed for no fame. I said, ‘I’ll take care of that myself. You just keep me healthy and I’ll do all I can to try to turn people around, to try to steer ’em in the right direction.’ That’s the whole trip in life, ya know.

Everything that Eddie has said about me is the total opposite of what really happened. Eddie says I wanted to be a solo artist. No, Eddie wanted to be a solo artist.

The book that convinced me I wanted to be a writer was ‘Crime and Punishment’. I put the thing down after reading it in a fever over two or three days… I said, ‘If this is what a book can be, then that is what I want to do.’

When I said I was going to audition for a film, I got a hearty laugh from all my family.

He said this has the potential to be the first broadband killer application, and it has sort of become the truth because obviously it’s so bandwidth intensive. I mean, it has been an issue.

Will Smith said if I ever need some help, he was there for me.

Now being in such grace and favor by reason I learned him some points of geometry and understanding of the art of mathematics with other things, I pleased him so that what I said he would not contrary.

Jesus said, ‘Greater things of these you shall do…’ Become a peace builder, a bridge builder, not a destroyer, and the way you do that is through friendships and relationships, and through authentic character.

Few expected very much of Franklin Roosevelt on Inauguration Day in 1933. Like Barack Obama seventy-six years later, he was succeeding a failed Republican president, and Americans had voted for change. What that change might be Roosevelt never clearly said, probably because he himself didn’t know.

What we now call school training, the pursuit of fixed studies at stated hours under the constant guidance of a teacher, I could scarcely be said to have enjoyed.

The best compliment I ever had is, one day I was in Nashville, some disc jockey said, Hey, that sounds like a Tom T. Hall song. Up until then there hadn’t been any such thing.

I meant exactly what I said: that we are saddled with a culture that hasn’t advanced as far as science.

People have always said – those words, ‘too conservative,’ is fairly relative. I’m sure that they probably said that about Thomas Jefferson and George Washington and Benjamin Franklin.

This has not been a legislative process worthy of the Senate. Members of the Judiciary Committee, as I just said, were implored to save their amendments for the floor. Then, when we got here, we were told no amendments could be accepted.

When someone goes, ‘Oh, this group is really pissed off at what you said,’ there’s not a piece of my body that goes, ‘Sweet!’ That means I did it wrong. I’m just trying to make people laugh.

There’s a conventional wisdom that says that strategic thinking is much more important than relationship building, which doesn’t seem to be nearly as highly valued as it should be, based on what some of the leaders that I’ve spoken with have said to me.

It’s been fascinating watching all those pictures of me with a lot more hair Jeremy, and looking very young. And we’ve all got things we’ve said, twenty, thirty years ago, indeed the whole world has changed since then.

I don’t know why but they you said it I started believing it.

Who said that artists should sell their soul, expose everything about themselves?

My psychiatrist told me I was crazy and I said I want a second opinion. He said okay, you’re ugly too.

Our sages of blessed memory have said that we must not enjoy any pleasure in this world without reciting a blessing.

There are things that can only be said with a good string of cussing. I’m definitely fond of a few choice words. They say things that nothing else can say. Gotta love it.

A civilization which has taken over the world cannot be said to be dying.

‘Crash’ came from personal experience. I saw things inside me from living in L.A. that made me uncomfortable. I saw horrible things in people and saw terrible things in myself. I saw a black director completely humiliated, but the three people around me just thought it was funny. ‘No,’ I said, ‘that is selling your...

President Bush has said that the economy is growing, that there are jobs out there. But you know, it’s a long commute to China to get those jobs.

I like taking genres and subverting them. I did that with ‘In the Valley of Elah.’ I said, ‘Okay, this is just a murder mystery. Relax.’ And then, two thirds of the way through, I broke every convention of a murder mystery.

The ‘I think’ which Kant said must be able to accompany all my objects, is the ‘I breathe’ which actually does accompany them.

As a sportsman, you always play to win. Having said that, it’s not possible to win every day. There will be days when you will do well and there will be days you won’t.

We have stood up and said continuing growth in the Western world is unjust, inappropriate and potentially destabilising. Having said that, we understand why governments do it, so there is an onus on us to show there are other stories and to identify the institutional innovations you might need in order to arrive at this...

Mencius said that human nature is good. I disagree with that.

I turned to my mom and said, ‘I’m going to be a martial arts movie star.’ She didn’t believe me, and neither did my dad. They both thought I would grow out of it. That it was a phase. I decided then I was going to do it or die trying.

Hence a ship is said to head the sea, when her course is opposed to the setting or direction of the surges.

Things said by political parties are different from the decisions of the government which are taken to uphold the rule of law. The government takes decisions that are best for the country.

‘Miracle at St. Anna.’ I was challenged by Spike Lee. When he offered me the film, he looked me square in the eye and said, ‘You start this film off and you end this film. I don’t want a dry eye in the theatre. Can you pull that off?’ He was dead serious.

It was always said that the big distinction between the French and the English is that the English are intelligent and the French are intellectual.

For me, the amazing thing was entering into this amazing world of ‘Sesame Street.’ We’d be in the kids’ room, and there was a door into the soundstage that said ‘1-2-3 Open Sesame.’ I remember pushing that door open and going into this incredible magical world of make-believe. In one episode, I was playing football...

One summer, when I was a kid, I was in the car with my stepfather, and he was asking me where I thought I ranked, on a scale of 1 to 10. I said, ‘6,’ and he said, ‘3.’ I think it was his way of telling me that I needed to get out and...

What, if as said, man is a bubble.

I said to myself, ‘I’ve waited a long time in my life to have a child, and I’m missing it, I want to continue to have a career, but not this way.’

In those days, reserve duty lasted for six years, which, I might add, was three times as long as service in the regular army, although to be perfectly honest, I was unable to fulfill my entire obligation because I was taking acting classes and they said I could skip my last year.

I can’t stand reading anything that I’ve said.

It is often said that having gone through any kind of suffering tends to makes you appreciate life more and live more in the present. I’m not sure how universal or long-lasting these effects really are.

I think day care is terrific. Kids get to be around other kids, and they’re playing, and they’re teaching each other. When I was in college, my summer job was being a preschool teacher. I loved it, and after that experience, I said I can’t wait to put my kid in day care because I...

I’ve always said I have one skill. That skill – if I have it at all – is storytelling.

When I first was exposed to Buddhism in the mid-1960s, I said it was so practical and utterly pragmatic. That’s what attracted me to Buddhism.