"I have had lots of friends who've been affected by Aids and a very good friend of mine, Oscar Moore, died of Aids and I was with him in his last year quite a bit. And of course he was a man living in a very rich culture with a wealthy family who was able to afford health care."

"If you don't want women to do whatever they need to do then you must provide them with food, you must provide them with shelter and their basic human rights."

"I understand what it's like to come with your family, and to uproot yourself and come to another culture. You need a lot of support. People say, 'She's got her daughter she's got her husband.' Yeah, but she hasn't got anyone else."

"We've got people looking at our seamy side and our sad side a lot of the time because that's easier. It's much more difficult to make a film about happiness with lots of jokes in it."

"Surely it is much more generous to forgive and remember, than to forgive and forget."

"Politics are for foreigners with their endless wrongs and paltry rights. Politics are a lousy way to get things done. Politics are, like God's infinite mercy, a last resort."

"I have lost my seven best friends, which is to say God has had mercy on me seven times without realizing it. He lent a friendship, took it from me, sent me another."

"To err is human; to forgive, divine."