And if you look at the reality in the United States where you have more than 40 million people below the poverty line and 42 million on food stamps and then you look at poverty around the world clearly the way we're running the engine of capitalism is not serving us well.

I do remember how it was to be poor. I do remember that in my early years we had to grow and raise all of our food even our animals. And I remember in my early life we didn't even have electricity. So it was very very hard times then.

Clearly society has a tremendous stake in insisting on a woman's natural fitness for the career of mother: the alternatives are all too expensive.

A moderate addiction to money may not always be hurtful but when taken in excess it is nearly always bad for the health.

Only weeks after Oslo began when nearly all the world and most of Israel was drunk with the idea of peace I argued that a Palestinian society not constrained by democratic norms would be a fear society that would pose a grave threat to Israel.

Honest to God all my life I have had such a fear of spiders. In fact I use to have a reoccurring dream about one. Very clearly it was black with a red head. It would sit up in the corner of the bedroom and when it started getting closer I would wake up in a panic.

I define fear as standing across the ring from Joe Louis and knowing he wants to go home early.

Therefore when I considered this carefully the contempt which I had to fear because of the novelty and apparent absurdity of my view nearly induced me to abandon utterly the work I had begun.

Decide very early on: do you want to be an actor or do you want to be famous? Because they're very different routes.

Quite often I can be in a bookshop standing beneath a great big picture of myself and paying for a book with a credit card clearly marked John Grisham yet no one recognises me. I often say I'm a famous author in a country where no one reads.