I didn't want the headache of having a publisher reviewing everything I wrote in advance.

A lot of directors don't know what they want to do. Every director I've seen that was a good director that I've admired knew exactly what he wanted to do. They didn't sit there and think about it.

Writing requires a great deal of skill, just like painting does. People don't want to learn those skills.

There is a certain kind of respect for authenticity today that there wasn't back in the days when they did 'Cleopatra,' where everything looked like a giant motel. People want to have it be authentic in the look, and authentic in the way people behave.

I want to move to a world of no nuclear weapons but I want to do that through multilateral disarmament so that we all disarm together.

It's really important to say this. Often the faith schools were founded before the state provided education. I want good education in this country so I'm not going to slag off faith schools. I think that it's important that people of different backgrounds and different faiths go to school together and many faith schools do that.

Yes, look, social class is definitely an issue in Britain, it is definitely an issue and I think that most people across the country would sympathise with the idea that there are lots of people with talent and ability all across this country who want to make more of themselves and part of the responsibility of government is to make that happen.

Let's start to have a grown up debate in this country about who we are and where we want to go and what kind of country we want to build.

Do we want an Attorney General who will play politics with the law, play politics with the court and just play politics with international conventions designed to protect our troops? I do not want to play that kind of politics. I am going to vote against Alberto Gonzales.

I don't want women and their families to be left out and left behind. We can fight for them. We will fight for them. They deserve better and I want to give them better.

Group conformity scares the pants off me because it's so often a prelude to cruelty towards anyone who doesn't want to - or can't - join the Big Parade.

I think the crucial thing in the writing career is to find what you want to do and how you fit in. What somebody else does is of no concern whatever except as an interesting variation.

Many believe - and I believe - that I have been designated for this work by God. In spite of my old age, I do not want to give it up; I work out of love for God and I put all my hope in Him.

I didn't want to do the whole, get the hottest person thing. I wanted to make sure every record felt right.

I want to make a pop album - something more upbeat than my stuff was in the '90s.