I'd like to say from the beginning that the 12 years I've been coming here, I've met unfailing courtesy and cooperation, courtesy from your people and cooperation from the Ministry of Information.
It would be wrong to say I enjoy having rows, because that would be un-Christian. If people attack me, then I respond, or if they do very wicked things. Then they must be brought to book.
I used to think that anyone doing anything weird was weird. I suddenly realized that anyone doing anything weird wasn't weird at all and it was the people saying they were weird that were weird.
BP has finally acknowledged what the American people have been saying for weeks: It must take responsibility for its reckless conduct, clean up the Gulf and compensate the countless victims of the disaster it caused.
I've been to a few conventions, you know, when the tax man knocks at the door and the 'Star Wars' convention people say: 'Do you want to come and sign some autographs?'
I can't tell you how many people would say to me as a teenager, 'Why don't you grow up and start thinking about getting a real job?'
To the American people I say, awaken to what is happening. It is the duty of each citizen to be vigilant, to protect liberty, to speak out, left and right and disagree lest be trampled underfoot by misguided zealotry and extreme partisanship.
I don't care what people say about how I look or even their opinion on my relationship. But the moment you judge my character is when we have a problem.
Many people say to me, particularly about my dance writing, 'It sounds just like you.' But it sounds just like me after I've made it sound like me.
I'm happy, I would say that I'm one of the happiest people I know but I've certainly had periods of profound sadness, depression and heartache and those are the kind of things that are interesting to me to write about.
Sigmund Freud makes people irritable. Whenever someone mentions Freud, say, at a dinner party, I see eyes roll and listen to the nasty remarks that follow.
That's my personal view I would say most in my caucus agree with that but there are some who don't and I've always said that on these kinds of moral issues, people have the right to their own opinions.
I hate the analyzing thing. People say, 'Why do you think your character did that? I don't know. I'm not an analyst, and they're not in psychotherapy. Unless it's a film where they're in therapy.
If you go and stop people at a supermarket and ask them for their receipt and say, 'Hey how much did you just spend?' middle class shoppers have no idea. The poor know what they just spent.
At screenings for 'Black in America,' I've heard people say, 'Well you know, I never thought you were black until you did Katrina, and then I thought you were black.'
There is a large group that's not represented on television - the group that falls somewhere in the middle of straight and gay. That group is looked down on, because people say, 'You can't be in-between. You have to pick one or the other.'
The problem with most people who say they believe, however, is that said belief is only a thin layer of solid ice which rests over a vast ocean that is likewise deep with non-solid disbelief.
We can no better imagine what will be happening on the moon 500 years from now than Columbus could imagine contemporary Manhattan. Except to say that it will be a place familiar to billions of people.
When people spot me, they are really warm. They acknowledge me with smiles and come up, even now, to tell me that I showed a lot of dignity in 'Big Brother.' Or they say, 'I voted for you to win!' which is really sweet.
When people come up to me and say, 'I read your book,' I'm thinking, 'How dare you! Who gave you a copy?'
When you don't have accountability, there's no limit to the things that people will say. One of the restraints on the vitriol and the filth that so often is part of the American political debate is that candidates have to stand by their ads.
