I looked about me. Luminous points glowed in the darkness. Cigarettes punctuated the humble meditations of worn old clerks. I heard them talking to one another in murmurs and whispers. They talked about illness, money, shabby domestic cares. And suddenly I had a vision of the face of destiny. Old bureaucrat, my comrade, it is not you who are to blame. No one ever helped you to escape. You, like a termite, built your peace by blocking up with cement every chink and cranny through which the light might pierce. You rolled yourself up into a ball in your genteel security, in routine, in the stifling conventions of provincial life, raising a modest rampart against the winds and the tides and the stars. You have chosen not to be perturbed by great problems, having trouble enough to forget your own fate as a man. You are not the dweller upon an errant planet and do not ask yourself questions to which there are no answers. Nobody grasped you by the shoulder while there was still time. Now the clay of which you were shaped has dried and hardened, and naught in you will ever awaken the sleeping musician, the poet, the astronomer that possibly inhabited you in the beginning.

What's the world's greatest lie?... It's this: that at a certain point in our lives, we lose control of what's happening to us, and our lives become controlled by fate.

I'm living at a peak of clarity and beauty I never knew existed. Every part of me is attuned to the work. I soak it up into my pores during the day, and at night-in the moments before I pass off into sleep-ideas explode into my head like fireworks. There is no greater joy than the burst of solution to a problem. Incredible that anything could happen to take away this bubbling energy, the zest that fills everything I do. It's as if all the knowledge I've soaked in during the past months has coalesced and lifted me to a peak of light and understanding. This is beauty, love, and truth all rolled into one. This is joy.

All the natural movements of the soul are controlled by laws analogous to those of physical gravity. Grace is the only exception. Grace fills empty spaces, but it can only enter where there is a void to receive it, and it is grace itself which makes this void. The imagination is continually at work filling up all the fissures through which grace might pass.

Life is to be lived, not controlled; and humanity is won by continuing to play in face of certain defeat.

"I remember when your name was just another name that rolled without thought off my tongue.

That was the only time, as I stood there, looking at that strange rubbish, feeling the wind coming across those empty fields, that I started to imagine just a little fantasy thing, because this was Norfolk after all, and it was only a couple of weeks since I'd lost him. I was thinking about the rubbish, the flapping plastic in the branches, the shore-line of odd stuff caught along the fencing, and I half-closed my eyes and imagined this was the spot where everything I'd ever lost since my childhood had washed up, and I was now standing here in front of it, and if I waited long enough, a tiny figure would appear on the horizon across the field, and gradually get larger until I'd see it was Tommy, and he'd wave, maybe even call. The fantasy never got beyond that --I didn't let it-- and though the tears rolled down my face, I wasn't sobbing or out of control. I just waited a bit, then turned back to the car, to drive off to wherever it was I was supposed to be.

Christian, you are the state lottery, the cure for cancer, and the three wishes from Aladdin's lamp all rolled into one

I think a film set is a quite controlled environment and you feel like you can trust them and it is going to be a safe place to work but I really don't think about it.

I hated science in high school. Technology? Engineering? Math? Why would I ever need this? Little did I realize that music was also about science technology engineering and mathematics all rolled into one.

So I see technology as a Trojan Horse: It looks like a wonderful thing but they are going to regret introducing it into the schools because it simply can't be controlled.

When people lack teachers their tendencies are not corrected when they do not have ritual and moral principles then their lawlessness is not controlled.

I've always loved sports and hockey is a sport I play as much as I can. I love it. In a weird way it's like church and therapy and exercise all rolled up into one. I mean when I play hockey I don't think about anything.

My parents couldn't handle my energy so they enrolled me in every sport the school was offering. I didn't resent it because I loved sports and picked them up easily.

The older I get the greater power I seem to have to help the world I am like a snowball - the further I am rolled the more I gain.

When buying and selling are controlled by legislation the first things to be bought and sold are legislators.

To me it seems a dreadful indignity to have a soul controlled by geography.

In antiquity the sage kings recognized that men's nature is bad and that their tendencies were not being corrected and their lawlessness controlled.

I always think about which blood drive was going on in Georgia that day when that husband or mom or school teacher rolled up their sleeve and actually gave me a second chance at life. It's the ultimate gift of life and I'm the one who was on the other end.

When I was really young my mom enrolled me in dance classes.

I really love idiot enlightened characters - these characters who fail to engage with the drama of their immediate circumstances they fail to be reactive and enrolled by drama as it happens around them.

But when women are moved and lend help when women who are by nature calm and controlled give encouragement and applause when virtuous and knowledgeable women grace the endeavor with their sweet love then it is invincible.

I wanted to translate from one flat surface to another. In fact my learning disabilities controlled a lot of things. I don't recognize faces so I'm sure it's what drove me to portraits in the first place.

I've always felt that what I have going for me is not my imagination because everyone has an imagination. What I have is a relentlessly controlled imagination. What looks like wild invention is actually quite carefully calculated.