My parents are artists in their world in the world of modern artists you are supposed to just go into your studio and tune everything out and your entire relationship with your work is supposed to be a super private one. That was the way to do it and you weren't deeply truly artistic if that wasn't the way you were engaging the press.

All modern revolutions have ended in a reinforcement of the power of the State.

In the long term the United States could greatly benefit Islam by uniquely freeing the religion from government constraints and permitting it to evolve in a positive modern direction. But that's the long term.

Moreover behind this vague tendency to treat religion as a side issue in modern life there exists a strong body of opinion that is actively hostile to Christianity and that regards the destruction of positive religion as absolutely necessary to the advance of modern culture.

The argument of the broken window pane is the most valuable argument in modern politics.

But I think it's quite clear in my work that my orientation isn't political or doesn't come out of modern politics.

One thing I have frankly decided is that when it comes to political reform we have two conservative parties in British politics. Both the Labour and Conservative parties have constantly and repeatedly failed to honour promises they have made about reforming cleaning modernising our clapped-out system.

The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy that is the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.

Too many people in the modern world view poetry as a luxury not a necessity like petrol. But to me it's the oil of life.

All the modern verse plays they're terrible they're mostly about the poetry. It's more important that the play is first.