“The minutes ticked past. This is why peelers need a book.”

The chip-pan fire was by far the most popular method these Proddies had for burning their houses down.

Human beings are pattern-seeking animals. It’s part of our DNA. That’s why conspiracy theories and gods are so popular: we always look for the wider, bigger explanations for things.

The second technique was the ever popular chimney fire and number three had to be the drunken cigarette drop on the carpet.

A wee paperback to stick in your pocket.

Mind you, why they’d be cooking chips at this hour was anyone’s guess.

Drawing Dead is a brilliant noir from one of Australia’s most exciting new novelists.

A woman in Santa Barbara, California, sent a $40,000 check. I fondled it for about five minutes and then sent it back. I told her I couldn’t accept money from strangers.

I would bet most people don’t have thirty minutes in a day where they can just sit down and think. Or maybe they don’t have to be sitting, they can be walking.

If you get beyond the political rhetoric [and assembled a group to solve Social Security] it would take them 15 minutes. It would take them 15 minutes only because 10 minutes was used for pleasantries.

Clint Dempsey scored a last-minute winner to earn Tottenham a 1-1 draw against United.

I want the public to realize that above all I am an actor, a very professional one who loves every minute of being in front of the camera. But one who becomes very miserable the instant the director shouts, ‘Cut!’

Happiness is impossible for longer than 15 minutes. We are the descendants of creatures who, above all else, worried.

I’d rather clean all the bathrooms in Grand Central Station with my tongue than spend one more minute with you.

I tell the players that they can’t relive any day in their lives and that they can’t relive the minutes of a game.