“I could give 48 penalties in every match if I wanted to.”

Coaches will do what they can but it doesn’t necessarily bother me.

If you get those two aspects right, most rugby matches will work in your favour.

I will know some of the personalities, the players who could be difficult customers in a scrum situation.

But then southern hemisphere teams are more skilful than their northern hemisphere counterparts, which means games can be easier to referee.

I have three tools at my disposal – my whistle, my body language and my talk.

The ones I am going to have to really work hard on early in the game to get what I want.

You are an international referee for a reason.

The objective of a referee is not to get mentioned. I tell a lot of young referees that not being mentioned is king.

Failure comes when you don’t listen.

The scrum and the tackle are the two really contentious areas of the game.

Coaches do so much research about a referee because they believe refereeing is such a crucial part of the game that the result may hinge on what we say or do.

It is a question of sometimes choosing what is – in your own mind – of material importance and what isn’t, what might be a crucial potential penalty and what might not be.

If things like that are going to ruffle your feathers, don’t bother doing the job.

It’s up to us to make sure we’re listening to improve our chances for success-if not this time, next time.

It is a question of how I marry them up to try to get the players around to my way of thinking.

If at first you don’t succeed, get a bigger hammer.

That’s what love does. When it’s right, it makes you more than you were, more than you thought you could be.

I don’t ever remember them telling us or teaching us that the only way we could be more successful is if other people were less successful. They never inculcated the belief that somehow, in order for us to climb the ladder, other people have to come down from the ladder.

The true picture of life as it is, if it could be adequately painted, would show men what they are, and how they might rise, not, indeed to perfection, but one step first, and then another on the ladder.

It’s been agony but I couldn’t have done it any other way.

If you look at it, the corset is a very beautiful item, but when I put one on, I realized how little you could actually move.

I wish I could make you see how much fuller the life I offer you is than anything you have a conception of.

I could not resist the temptation of mystifying him a bit, I suppose it is some taste of the original apple that remains still in our mouths.

There’s one thing everyone should understand: I like my character.