"I suppose it hacks me off sometimes when people go on about all the other stuff, because I have really worked hard at my game, and I've been incredibly dedicated in getting myself fit, and getting my game right"
"It strikes me that these days, clubs don't even want players who can truly play any more; they just want athletes, quick guys who don't have a football brain, can just run and run; some of them, Jesus. I can never imagine acting like that"
"Not because they were servants were we so reserved, for many noble persons are forced to serve through necessity, but by reason the vulgar sort of servants are as ill bred as meanly born, giving children ill examples and worse counsel"
"And though I might have learnt more wit and advanced my understanding by living in a Court, yet being dull, fearful and bashful, I neither heeded what was said or practised, but just what belonged to my loyal duty and my own honest reputation"
"The Barks of Trees are best gathered in the Spring, if it be of great Trees, as Oaks or the like, because then they come easiest off, and so you may dry them if you please, but indeed your best way is to gather all Barks only for present use"
"He told me I didn't understand, that we were from the bleak industrial wastes of North England, or something, and that we didn't understand the Internet. I told him Fall fans invented the Internet. They were on there in 1982"
"I plot the first 5 or 6 chapters quite minutely, and also the end. So I know where I am going but not how I'm going to get there, which gives characters the chance to develop organically, as happens in real life as you get to know a person"
"Real knowledge, like everything else of value, is not to be obtained easily. It must be worked for, studied for, thought for, and, more that all, must be prayed for"
"To see how Christ was prophesied and described therein, consider and mark, how that the kid or lamb must be with out spot or blemish; and so was Christ only of all mankind, in the sight of God and of his law"
"Once I was walking from The Mercer in New York - because otherwise I don't walk anywhere - and this woman paparazzo who was following me fell over a fire hydrant and her whole tooth went through her lip. I leant over her, saying, 'Are you all right?' and she was still taking pictures"
"One's age should be tranquil, as childhood should be playful. Hard work at either extremity of life seems out of place. At midday the sun may burn, and men labor under it; but the morning and evening should be alike calm and cheerful"
"Certain it is that their power increased always in an exact proportion to the weakness of the Caliphate, and, without doubt, in some of the most distracted periods of the Arabian rule, the Hebrew Princes rose into some degree of local and temporary importance"
