When people stand up and talk about the great success that the EU has been I'm not sure anybody saying it really believes it themselves anymore.

I think the measure of your success to a certain extent will be the amount of things written about you that aren't true.

Philanthropy is the thing that I am really excited about and having success means I can do more.

The only thing I can say about having this type of success is that you can get yourself in trouble because basically the world is set open for you. People will say yes to anything you ask so it's basically down to you and what you want or need.

Real success is being totally indulgent about your own trip. You put your blinders on about the garbage and go full speed ahead.

Which is - you know like check it out I'm pretty young I'm only about 40 years old. I still have maybe another four decades of work left in me. And it's exceedingly likely that anything I write from this point forward is going to be judged by the world as the work that came after the freakish success of my last book right?

I feel lucky because I was a nerd which I talk about in the book but I had academic success so through that because that's what my parents put a great deal of value on I had a great childhood because I sort of fulfilled the expectations of being good at school.

This weird thing happens when you're in a movie that has some level of success. People start offering you all kinds of things and they just expect you to do them because they'll be good for your career. It's not about the project's integrity or anything like that.

Success is always something completely different to people. I feel like I've succeeded if I'm doing something that makes me happy and I'm not lying to anybody. I'm not doing that now so I feel really good about myself.

I think the success of democracy is not really police security it's the presence of a broad middle class. The stronger the middle class of a people is the less you have to worry about one group coming in and exploiting the democratic process for its own ends.