You don't have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.

If I wish to compose or write or pray or preach well, I must be angry. Then all the blood in my veins is stirred, and my understanding is sharpened.

Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.

The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character - that is the goal of true education.

I've done so much travelling in the past few years, and when you travel, you realise that we do actually have a cool, clean look in Scandinavia - it's not just Denmark - which I think brings peace if you have it in your home.

Although Omaha is my birthplace and the place I grew up, I don't see myself spending extended amounts of time there. I feel almost more comfortable and more at peace in New York.

Shakespeare is all big themes, like the most amazing love, or the most scary war.

The First World War was a war devoid of any virtue. It arose from the quagmire of European tribalism: a complex interplay of nation-state destinies overlaid by notions of cultural superiority peppered with racism.