There are some people whose opinion I value and respect and it would be very bothersome if I forfeited their respect. But the general public? I'm not preoccupied with the opinions of others.

As a politician you have to deal with someone wanting you to fail every day. I think I prefer being in a situation where generally people are rooting for me and if they aren't rooting for me they aren't out there to see my downfall. I respect the people who have the stomach for it.

I think the new generation is much more demanding about respect for the environment than we have ever imagined.

I've always had great respect for Paddington because he is amusingly English and eccentric. He is a great British institution and my generation grew up with the books and then Michael Horden's animations.

Great authors are admirable in this respect: in every generation they make for disagreement. Through them we become aware of our differences.

The little religion that I have clung to-that what matters most is the continuity of life and its improvement from one generation to another.

Thus a man was born into a fixed relation to certain gods as surely as he was born into a relation to his fellow-men and his religion... was simply one side of the general scheme of conduct prescribed for him by his position as a member of society.

There's a generation of people I think without a strong connection to family to religion to civic duty. They have a real disassociation from the problems of the world.

There was a time when someone would get on a plane and request to move their seat just because the person sitting next to them was of a different ethnicity or religion or nationality. But I don't think my generation wants that. That's how it used to be.

I hate organized religion. I think you have to love thy neighbor as thyself. I think you have to pick your own God and be true to him. I always say 'him' rather than 'her.' Maybe it's because of my generation but I don't like the idea of a female God. I see God as a benevolent male.