It seems like when I was growing up there was more compromise, wanting to work with each other, and I think all of them – all of the lawmakers – have hearts to do what’s right, and they all are passionate about it.

At Microsoft there are lots of brilliant ideas but the image is that they all come from the top – I’m afraid that’s not quite right.

Becoming a writer is not a ‚career decision‘ like becoming a doctor or a policeman. You don’t choose it so much as get chosen, and once you accept the fact that you’re not fit for anything else, you have to be prepared to walk a long, hard road for the rest of your days.

Football fans share a universal language that cuts across many cultures and many personality types. A serious football fan is never alone. We are legion, and football is often the only thing we have in common.

When I look at acting careers that I really admire, I see that it’s been a precise decision-making process for these people. They make decisions based on what they love, and they do only the things that they are passionate about. They play only characters that they can’t stop thinking about.

We may have all come on different ships, but we’re in the same boat now.

True art is characterized by an irresistible urge in the creative artist.

Love is the answer to everything. It’s the only reason to do anything. If you don’t write stories you love, you’ll never make it. If you don’t write stories that other people love, you’ll never make it.

It’s nice when little teams win.

Music is really driving my whole life.

From the deepest desires often come the deadliest hate.

The vibe in our locker room is real energetic and fun and real personable, I think from Day 1. That gets you through a lot of tough times, where in hard times, it might be common nature for guys to do their own thing and split up and become silent.

There are many things I do where the centre of it is… It’s almost more my humanitarian work than art.

Football is all about fans.

I think, generally, I just cannot really envision life without writing and producing records and singing.

My own brain is to me the most unaccountable of machinery – always buzzing, humming, soaring roaring diving, and then buried in mud. And why? What’s this passion for?

I think business has to be stupider. I want to do really straightforward, stupid business – just talk to me like a 4-year-old. And I refuse to negotiate. I do not negotiate. I can collaborate. But I’m an artist, so as soon as you negotiate, you’re being compromised.

Love is like a friendship caught on fire. In the beginning a flame, very pretty, often hot and fierce, but still only light and flickering. As love grows older, our hearts mature and our love becomes as coals, deep-burning and unquenchable.

It’s hard work making movies. It’s like being a doctor: you work long hours, very hard hours, and it’s emotional, tense work. If you don’t really love it, then it ain’t worth it.

In England, football is a big thing to talk about, but Liverpool, it’s a special place. You feel it when you make your first step.

Refuse to be a lazy Christian, and resist a passive, apathetic attitude.

The minute you start compromising for the sake of massaging somebody’s ego, that’s it, game over.

I only act from my heart.

I became interested in folk music because I had to make it somehow.

Cooking is about passion, so it may look slightly temperamental in a way that it’s too assertive to the naked eye.

The book of female logic is blotted all over with tears, and Justice in their courts is forever in a passion.

I’ve got incredible support from my wife and family and people around me. I’ve got great people around me who handle anything on the outside, business-wise, who help free me up to create in my job.

We want everybody to act like adults, quit playing games, realize that it’s not just my way or the highway.

The people who are doing the work are the moving force behind the Macintosh. My job is to create a space for them, to clear out the rest of the organization and keep it at bay.

Football (soccer) is a matter of life and death, except more important.

Unless both sides win, no agreement can be permanent.

Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.

I wanted to be in a punk band before I had even heard any punk music.

I think, team first. It allows me to succeed, it allows my team to succeed.

No foreign policy – no matter how ingenious – has any chance of success if it is born in the minds of a few and carried in the hearts of none.

I think we understand that for the Court to work well, we have to not only respect but genuinely like each other.

To be honest, I never really considered myself to be too much of an actress. So, whenever I get the chance to do music, I’m always, like, just in it. It’s like, ‚Oh my God, I finally get to do this. I’m so happy.‘

Surround yourself with people who take their work seriously, but not themselves, those who work hard and play hard.

Never hold discussions with the monkey when the organ grinder is in the room.

Art is man’s expression of his joy in labor.

I never wanted to be a scientist per se. I wanted to be a naturalist.

You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.

I just know that I’m a fan of all different kinds of genres. You’re supposed to be free doing music, and that’s how I feel.

I believe in singing to such an extent that, if I were asked to redesign the British educational system, I would start by insisting that group singing becomes a central part of the daily routine. I believe it builds character and, more than anything else, encourages a taste for cooperation with others.

To not follow your passion in life is a recipe for failure and unhappiness.

I loved writing for kids, I loved talking to children about what I’d written, I don’t want to leave that behind.

Whoever the coach is, my job is to talk to him, understand him and be a better player under him and give my best.

I do some kind of work, whether writing or painting or recording, on a daily basis. And it’s so essential that when I’m involved in the actual process, my so-called ‚real life‘ becomes almost incidental, which becomes worrying.

Though force can protect in emergency, only justice, fairness, consideration and cooperation can finally lead men to the dawn of eternal peace.

I mean, what would I be doing if I couldn’t write? But that fortunately hasn’t proved to be the case and I can read any day. I still read a lot, and I can write any day, but much more slowly and fewer words.

I always wanted a great love affair: something that feels big and full, really honest, and enough. No moment should feel slight, false, or a little off. For me, it had to be everything.

If you are born an artist, you have no choice but to fight to stay an artist.

My model for business is The Beatles: They were four guys that kept each others‘ negative tendencies in check; they balanced each other. And the total was greater than the sum of the parts.

No man can succeed in a line of endeavor which he does not like.

The colonel replied that he didn’t care how my men had got the job done. He was happy that it had been accomplished. He said that, obviously, no matter how much or how little I knew technically, I was able to get the best out of people I worked with.

Let’s face it. Umpiring is not an easy or happy way to make a living. In the abuse they suffer, and the pay they get for it, you see an imbalance that can only be explained by their need to stay close to a game they can’t resist.

There is no scarcity of opportunity to make a living at what you love; there’s only scarcity of resolve to make it happen.

Getting a great idea with song writing is a lot like love. You don’t know why this one is different, but it is. You don’t know why this one is better, but it is. It sticks in your head, and you can’t stop thinking about it.

Where would I be without baseball? Who am I without baseball?

An intellectual is a person who’s found one thing that’s more interesting than sex.

There’s an ecstatic side to writing. It’s like jazz. It just has a life.