The bracelet says 'Fear Nothing.' It was given to me by my friends, and it was made for me and my friends during the period of time that I was going through chemotherapy. And I still wear it, because it's a great reminder of friendship and how my bud...
There were periods of my life when a lot of people didn't believe in me. I still had faith in myself. I really had to ask myself life questions. Where do I see myself in five years? Create a ladder for yourself, and walk up the steps. Climb that ladd...
America is a living idea. It isn't only the tenets of its founding, but also the terms of its future. Every day, we make America. Seeking to preserve and enshrine one vision of this country from one period of its past robs it of what makes it magical...
It's funny - when I first started as an actor, obviously there were long periods of being idle and all you want to do is work. So if I ever get the compulsion to feel like I should complain or feel like I want to take a break, I just remember how I w...
I suppose whenever you go through periods of transition, or in a way, it's a very definite closing of a certain chapter of your life - I suppose those times are always going to be both very upsetting and also very exciting by the very nature because ...
The more settled I've become, the more problematic my characters have become. There was a period when I wrote sensitive and gentle songs and these came at a time when life was at its most destructive. I think you write about what you need, on some le...
You have so much to share, you have so much to tell, you have so much you want to expose, so much that's inside that you've learned from that life period. There are really very few people I can share that with.
Nothing is forever, and I do still talk about when I'll come back to Britain. I'd love to come back and do a nice big juicy period drama. I don't understand it when people suddenly turn their back on Britain or Scotland. I'm so aware of it, and it's ...
I dream of working with iconic directors such as Tim Burton, Baz Luhrmann, Terry Gilliam and Wes Anderson - so I'm setting my sights pretty high! My perfect role would be in a fairy-tale period piece, and I'm quite upset all the Harry Potter movies h...
I dyed my hair red when I was ten and when I was 11 - in my goth period - I dyed it black and I was really into witchcraft. I made mini shrines in my bedroom with candles and tried to cast spells to make the boy in the next class fall in love with me...
In Australia I was seen as somebody who did only very modern, contemporary stuff. Then as soon as I went overseas I did two period pieces so it was like, 'When are you going to get out of the corsets?' And I was thinking I just got into them!
For most people, chemotherapy is no longer the chamber of horrors we often conceive it to be. Yes, it is an ordeal for some people, but it wasn't for me, nor for most of the patients I got to know during my four months of periodic visits to the chemo...
I don't have doctrinaire views about how we should relate to Asia. But novelists reflect the world they live in, and that world propels you, to some extent. I'm a creature of the British Empire, and of the period of transition from the Empire.
Every age has its own outlook. It is specially good at seeing certain truths and specially liable to make certain mistakes. We all, therefore, need the books that will correct the characteristic mistake of our own period. And that means the old books...
The hardest period in life is one’s twenties. It’s a shame because you’re your most gorgeous, and you’re physically in peak condition. But it’s actually when you’re most insecure and full of self-doubt. When you don’t know what’s goin...
I think I'm much less self confident today. I actually went through a quite painful period because of that thinking that I was completely hopeless. But I think that's something that we all go through at various times of our lives and it was quite a s...
Anytime I see a rainbow, what comes into my mind is how skillful and talented someone was to create an ark that didn't leak through a prolong period of flood. We must work our talents out and work them out skillfully and then our rainbow of excellenc...
I wore a lot of vintage clothing. I dressed like a reporter, with a little card in my hat. I had these fantasies of who I wanted to be, so I'd dress like an explorer, a cowboy. I dressed up like Elton John a lot too. That was another period.
In fact, for a period stretching over seven hundred years, the international language of science was Arabic. For this was the language of the Qur'an, the holy book of Islam, and thus the official language of the vast Islamic Empire that, by the early...
We will not play with inflation. We are living a delicate moment. President Obama spoke to me today about the high unemployment affecting the United States. In this crisis period, when the developed nations are not recovering, it's prudent to maintai...
Life is funny. We all have periods of ups and downs. Of silence and discovery. And then we begin to know who we are. Like watching a rose opening. Ah, we say. And once we do, the love and the wonder truly begin.
