Confidence is at the root of so many attractive qualities a sense of humor a sense of style a willingness to be who you are no matter what anyone else might think or say and it's true I do have a certain fondness for women that have dark hair.

I hope I'm in a position to make stuff that I really want to make as opposed to stuff that I just have to make for money reasons or to sustain a certain marquee value.

Well I certainly have learned and I hope I'm moving on and certainly two years of prison was a terrible punishment.

Certain it is that a great responsibility rests upon the statesmen of all nations not only to fulfill the promises for reduction in armaments but to maintain the confidence of the people of the world in the hope of an enduring peace.

One thing that being a scientist has taught me is that you can never be certain about anything. You never know the truth. You can only approach it and hope to get a bit nearer to it each time. You iterate towards the truth. You don't know it.

I certainly hope I'm not still answering child-star questions by the time I reach menopause.

I certainly notice the vitality in Belfast which wasn't there in the Seventies. There was a war going on then. Now there are cranes everywhere. There really is a sense of renewal and hope.

It took me less than half a lifetime to realize that regret is one of the few guaranteed certainties. Sooner or later everything is touched by it despite our naive and senseless hope that just this time we will be spared its cold hand on our heart.

Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well but the certainty that something makes sense regardless of how it turns out.

Isn't it the moment of most profound doubt that gives birth to new certainties? Perhaps hopelessness is the very soil that nourishes human hope perhaps one could never find sense in life without first experiencing its absurdity.

Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well but the certainty that something makes sense regardless of how it turns out.

Uncertainty is the refuge of hope.

I love being on stage if I'm not on a set. If I'm at home I'm usually in my office editing or reconstructing my website or whatever it may be. I just love putting creativity into a performance so if the right script comes along and I certainly am reading comedies and dramas now then I'm ready willing and able to give it a shot.

I try and eat really healthy when I'm home but I certainly don't eat worms and snakes.

If you're a misanthrope you stay at home. There are certain writers who really don't like other people. I'm not like that I don't think.

Most of us in the baby-boom generation were raised by full-time mothers. Even as recently as 14 years ago 6 out of 10 mothers with babies were staying at home. Today that is totally reversed. Does that mean we love our children less than our mothers loved us? No but it certainly causes a lot of guilt trips.

You come to work and you laugh all day you go home and you feel light and there's a certain feeling when you're sitting with the audience and they leave after 90 minutes and it's just pure escapism and they're happy.

Drama can feel like therapy whereas comedy feels like there's been a pressure and a weight lifted off of you. You come to work and you laugh all day you go home and you feel light and there's a certain feeling when you're sitting with the audience and they leave after 90 minutes and it's just pure escapism and they're happy.

I like to maintain a certain sense of fantasy in my life. I am kind of like that at home. Do I have the full hair and makeup? No. But I might have the nice dress on.

England is my home. London is my home. New York feels like if I have to spend a year living in an unfamiliar city this is a pretty lovely one to spend a year in but I will be going home at the end of it certainly.

The only justification for repressive institutions is material and cultural deficit. But such institutions at certain stages of history perpetuate and produce such a deficit and even threaten human survival.

I just think it would be unrealistic to suggest we're going to eliminate every last domestic insurgent in Afghanistan. Certainly the history of the country would indicate that's not a very realistic objective and I think we have to have realistic objectives.

The best history is but like the art of Rembrandt it casts a vivid light on certain selected causes on those which were best and greatest it leaves all the rest in shadow and unseen.

From Jefferson to Jackson to Lincoln to FDR to Reagan every great president inspires enormous affection and enormous hostility. We'll all be much saner I think if we remember that history is full of surprises and things that seemed absolutely certain one day are often unimaginable the next.