"Old age is a shipwreck."

"I have come to the conclusion that politics are too serious a matter to be left to the politicians."

"In the tumult of men and events, solitude was my temptation now it is my friend. What other satisfaction can be sought once you have confronted History?"

"The sword is the axis of the world and its power is absolute."

"Trust is a big word for me. Loyalty and trust, for me, are everything. It's the core of what I'm about and what the people around me hopefully are about. It's a certain thing that gives you a sense of security. It's the biggest factor in everything I do."

"I do belong on stage."

"I do write a lot from personal experience, but I also embellish a bit."

"You take a number of small steps which you believe are right, thinking maybe tomorrow somebody will treat this as a dangerous provocation. And then you wait. If there is no reaction, you take another step: courage is only an accumulation of small steps."