Major success feels a bit like a coronation. Like I'd become a king. I was one of the most famous people in the world, loved and hated in equal measure. I couldn't see anything bad with it. It made me a happy person.

On the other hand, when I give it closer thought, I realize I'm not enough of a dictator to conduct an orchestra because it requires a pretty awful person. When you read these biographies of famous conductors, they are all awful people who fail in their private relationships.

Eberhard Weber

Through my travels, I find inspiration in street style and how young women create their individual looks and identity.

Maria Sharapova

I think America becomes more disgruntled by going to the movies and having an endlessly good time at them.

Fiona Shaw

With so much effort being poured into church growth, so much press being given to the benefits of faith, and so much flexing of religious muscle in the public square, the poor in spirit have no one but Jesus to call them blessed anymore.

Barbara Brown Taylor

I believe my woman shouldn't work outside the home.

Oliver Reed

If a line of poetry strays into my memory, my skin bristles so that the razor ceases to act.

A. E. Housman

And from the first time I picked up a basketball at age eight - I had a lot of difficulty when I first picked up a basketball, because I was a scrub - there were things that I liked about it.

Julius Erving

I always believed in the music we did and that's why it was uncompromising.

Jimmy Page

Make my enemy brave and strong, so that if defeated, I will not be ashamed.

American Indian Proverb, Plains

Humor is an almost physiological response to fear.

Kurt Vonnegut

When a nation is over-reliant on one or two commodities like oil or precious minerals, corrupt government ministers and their dodgy associates hoard profits and taxes instead of properly allocating them to schools and hospitals.

Bono

Church is the only place where someone speaks to me and I do not have to answer back.

Charles de Gaulle