The combination of landing the biggest interview of my career and having a drill in my back reminds me that God only gives us what we can handle and that it helps to have a good sense of humor when we run smack into the absurdity of life.

I think it's because it's so different and it takes risks. Plus it's really smart humor. It gives the audience credit in terms of not needing to tell them when to laugh. I love that about the show. There's no laugh track.

I like being a Baha'i who has an out-there sense of humor. God gives us talents and faculties and making people laugh is one of mine.

Sometimes a scene may be about one thing and it may end up still being about that but the emotionality of it comes from somewhere else or the humor of it comes from somewhere else and it gives it that real-life quality.

I don't feel despair because I am able to make the films I want to make and that gives me hope.

If you're lucky enough to be involved in a film that's about something very real and that you hope will continue to hold up in 20 years' time it just gives you more energy and makes it feel all the more worthwhile.

I have always striven to raise the voice of hope for a world where hate gives way to respect and oppression to liberation.

For all their current prestige Osama bin Laden and the suicide bombers are still regarded in all but the most desperate districts of Gaza or Peshawar as romantics with little chance of more than symbolic victories however bloody and brutal. That gives both the Middle East and the West a small and distant hope of security.

I do believe that most men live lives of quiet desperation. For despair optimism is the only practical solution. Hope is practical. Because eliminate that and it's pretty scary. Hope at least gives you the option of living.

A person who no matter how desperate the situation gives others hope is a true leader.

But then there are magical beautiful things in the world. There's incredible acts of kindness and bravery and in the most unlikely places and it gives you hope.

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.

I like a teacher who gives you something to take home to think about besides homework.

Decorate your home. It gives the illusion that your life is more interesting than it really is.

Cameramen are among the most extraordinarily able and competent people I know. They have to have an insight into natural history that gives them a sixth sense of what the creature is going to do so they can be ready to follow.

Of all the species of literary composition perhaps biography is the most delightful. The attention concentrated on one individual gives a unity to the materials of which it is composed which is wanting in general history.

Yoga is wonderful. It clears up most health problems. It also gives you an overview.

Medicine sometimes snatches away health sometimes gives it.

The lesson I have thoroughly learnt and wish to pass on to others is to know the enduring happiness that the love of a garden gives.

Inequality makes everyone unhappy the poor most of all and that is well within the remit of the state. More money gives less extra happiness the richer we get yet we are addicted to earning and spending more every year.

The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself.

Eating is not merely a material pleasure. Eating well gives a spectacular joy to life and contributes immensely to goodwill and happy companionship. It is of great importance to the morale.

Creativity is a great motivator because it makes people interested in what they are doing. Creativity gives hope that there can be a worthwhile idea. Creativity gives the possibility of some sort of achievement to everyone. Creativity makes life more fun and more interesting.

It gives me great pleasure indeed to see the stubbornness of an incorrigible nonconformist warmly acclaimed.