It is well known that the Nobel Committees bring world opinion to a focus, and that fact still further enhances the prestige attaching to the Prizes.

Though it might be invidious to mention individuals, yet I may be allowed to say how much I owe to the constant help of my wife, not quite my first, but much my most consistent collaborator, and over the longest period of years.

The winners of Nobel Prizes must be assumed to possess at least a modicum of imagination and sensibility, and it is therefore incredible that any of us should not experience at this time a veritable surge of emotion.

I'd like the United States to become what it was always meant to be, which is a secular nation - more publicly committed to reason, to improving understanding, and promoting education.

In a world as competitive as ours, the child who does not get a decent education is condemned to the fringes of society. I think all Australians agree that this is intolerable. So we must demand as much of our schools as we do of our sports teams - and ensure that they keep the Australian dream alive for every child.

The minute we stop learning, we begin death, the process of dying. We learn from each other with every action we perform. We are teaching goodness or evil every time we step out of the house and into the street.

I had spent my childhood making up adventures in my head. Then I realized when I went to acting school that there were adventures written down, and you could learn lines, and you could do the adventures for real, not just in your head.