I actually share her view and understand her frustration when any government attempts to ban secular symbols like Santa Claus or Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer or Christmas lights.

Actually my mother and Alfie came for three weeks' Christmas vacation and stayed for 21 years. I guess my mother never went back because she was lonely.

It may be a cliche but it's true - the build-up to Christmas is so much more pleasurable than the actual day itself.

I'm actually living my life with the material I choose to work with.

When you're a chef you graze. You never get a chance to sit down and eat. They don't actually sit down and eat before you cook. So when I finish work the first thing I'll do and especially when I'm in New York I'll go for a run. And I'll run 10 or 15k on my - and I run to gain my appetite.

The difference between people who believe they have books inside of them and those who actually write books is sheer cussed persistence - the ability to make yourself work at your craft every day - the belief even in the face of obstacles that you've got something worth saying.

And it hurts as a player that you put a lot of hard work in during the week and at the end of the week Sunday when you get on the field that's when they acknowledge about the hard work that you put in throughout the week. That's actually a disappointment.

I actually may do a musical next year... not one that I've written one that I may star in. Plus my concert and other people's work and all of a sudden you've got a very full life.

So did I work with Warhol? I worked with him less on that play then I did on other things. He actually did a portrait of my rabbit and some other stuff. Warhol was definitely... Warhol.

But I work harder now because I have so much more exposure. And actually the harder you work as a writer the better you get at it. It's like anything else. It's a muscle you have to exercise. I write more now than ever.

Individuality is founded in feeling and the recesses of feeling the darker blinder strata of character are the only places in the world in which we catch real fact in the making and directly perceive how events happen and how work is actually done.

The big mistake that men make is that when they turn thirteen or fourteen and all of a sudden they've reached puberty they believe that they like women. Actually you're just horny. It doesn't mean you like women any more at twenty-one than you did at ten.

Can I just say here how much I hate the word 'pamper'? While pretending to celebrate and indulge women it actually implies that their bodies are so revolting that even their 'me time' must be dedicated to turning them into living dolls if potential suitors are to be prevented from running screaming in horror.

Being a woman is of special interest only to aspiring male transsexuals. To actual women it is simply a good excuse not to play football.

I try to write parts for women that are as complicated and interesting as women actually are.

I actually think with age comes some level of wisdom.

And when the world is created it is created in such a way that those eternal objects of God's loving wisdom become actualities - interacting with one another relating to God in the finite realm.

You know how people always talk about how vision is the key to entrepreneurship and perseverance and really seeing what other people don't see? We can actually redeem a fair amount of that folk wisdom.

I actually don't think that I'm that much smarter than anybody else. It's just that I frequently just seem to know what to do and I think that's wisdom.

Well... Actually I got picked because I was the only one who fit the wedding gown - they had my size.

I got my first big paycheck for 'My Best Friend's Wedding.' This was in the days when you actually did get paid to have a supporting role. It just doesn't happen like that anymore but this was in the '90s. It was the golden age!

My wedding was at home so I didn't really want to wear a veil in my house. Instead I wore a lot of diamond hair clips. They were brooches actually designed by Lorraine Schwartz.

I think a lot of people get so obsessed with the wedding and the expense of the wedding that they miss out on what the real purpose is. It's not about a production number it's about a meaningful moment between two people that's witnessed by people that they actually really know and care about.

I'm actually reading 'World War Z' again! It's incredibly realistic and it's written as an oral history through interviews with different characters. Max Brooks wrote this book in so many different voices. There are about forty or so. It's incredible. When I finish 'World War Z' I'm going to go back and start again on the 'Game of Thrones' series.

I mean I was born the day war broke out but I don't remember all the bombs though they did actually break up Liverpool you know. I remember when I was a little older there was big gaps in all the streets where houses used to be. We used to play over them.

I was a soldier in WWII. The last couple of months of the war I was actually in combat.

In the re-creation of combat situations and this is coming from a director who's never been in one being mindful of what these veterans have actually gone through you find that the biggest concern is that you don't look at war as a geopolitical endeavor.

Four years ago I promised to end the war in Iraq. We did. I promised to refocus on the terrorists who actually attacked us on 9/11. We have. We've blunted the Taliban's momentum in Afghanistan and in 2014 our longest war will be over. A new tower rises above the New York skyline al Qaeda is on the path to defeat and Osama bin Laden is dead.

It is our duty still to endeavor to avoid war but if it shall actually take place no matter by whom brought on we must defend ourselves. If our house be on fire without inquiring whether it was fired from within or without we must try to extinguish it.

To walk through the ruined cities of Germany is to feel an actual doubt about the continuity of civilization.