I had been a reporter for 15 years when I set out to write my first novel. I knew how to research an article or profile a subject - skills that I assumed would be useless when it came to fiction. It was from my imagination that the characters in my story would emerge.

How can a doctor judge a woman's sanity by merely bidding her good morning and refusing to hear her pleas for release? Even the sick ones know it is useless to say anything for the answer will be that it is their imagination.

To not be self-conscious of your appearance is huge and something that I desperately hope to carry into film at some point in my useless life - to not be thinking 'My ear looks weird from this angle why is the camera over there?'

Man wants to live but it is useless to hope that this desire will dictate all his actions.

Life does not agree with philosophy: There is no happiness that is not idleness and only what is useless is pleasurable.

It is better wither to be silent or to say things of more value than silence. Sooner throw a pearl at hazard than an idle or useless word and do not say a little in many words but a great deal in a few.

It is a useless life that is not consecrated to a great ideal. It is like a stone wasted on the field without becoming a part of any edifice.

There are many people who feel that it is useless and futile to continue talking about peace and non-violence against a government whose only reply is savage attacks on an unarmed and defenceless people.

There are three kinds of intelligence: one kind understands things for itself the other appreciates what others can understand the third understands neither for itself nor through others. This first kind is excellent the second good and the third kind useless.

I cannot think that we are useless or God would not have created us. There is one God looking down on us all. We are all the children of one God. The sun the darkness the winds are all listening to what we have to say.