“Do not bandy words with your father, nor treat him as a dotard, nor reproach the old man, who has cherished you, with his age.”

Ah! the Generals! they are numerous, but not good for much!

A fox is subtlety itself.

There is no honest man! not one, that can resist the attraction of gold!

A man’s homeland is wherever he prospers.

Have you ever, looking up, seen a cloud like to a Centaur, a Part, or a Wolf, or a Bull?

It is bad taste for a poet to be coarse and hairy.

You vote yourselves salaries out of the public funds and care only for your own personal interests; hence the state limps along.

These impossible women! How they do get around us! The poet was right: can’t live with them, or without them!

Hunger knows no friend but its feeder.

The gods, my dear simple fellow, are a mere expression coined by vulgar superstition. We frown upon such coinage here.

There is no beast, no rush of fire, like woman so untamed. She calmly goes her way where even panthers would be shamed.

By words the mind is winged.

Your lost friends are not dead, but gone before, advanced a stage or two upon that road which you must travel in the steps they trod.

Tis not for us to warn a wilful sinner; We stay him not, but let him run his course, Till by misfortunes rous’d, his conscience wakes, And prompts him to appease th’ offended gods.

Evil events from evil causes spring.

I saw a cavalry captain buy vegetable soup on horseback. He carried the whole mess home in his helmet.

I am only 33, I’ve got a lot to do. This is the first half of my career. I’m looking forward to the future and I’m proud about the past.

Save your money. You’re going to need twice as much money in your old age as you think.

The best research for playing a drunk is being a British actor for 20 years.

I had my first kiss when I was 11, but I think I’ve blocked it out of my mind because it was so bad. I’m not even sure it counts as a kiss.

A performer learns with experience and with age. I did not know the future when I left home and started out to begin my career: I started qawaali; then I met Peter Gabriel and was exposed to a lot of new ideas.

I got a toy keyboard when I was around like five or six.

I wrestled with anger from the age of sixteen. It’s still one of my nemeses. I have to remember that the word of God says, ‘Be slow to anger.’

One of the regrettable things in my life is that my dad was not around to see my stardom, to see me wrestle or to see what I achieved by the dream I had at an early age, influenced by where he would like to go.