One can never be sure whether a very early memory is a real memory or just the recollection of something which you were told happened.

When I was three, my father was three. When I was six, he was six... he needed me to escape from being 50.

My father did not drink beer. He said he didn't like the taste, and I was prepared to accept that I wouldn't like the taste either. So I stuck to bottled cider.

In pessimistic moments, when I was trudging London in search of an employer wanting to make use of such talents as I could offer, it seemed to me, almost, that my father had got to where he was by climbing upon my infant shoulders, that he had filched from me my good name and had left me with nothing but the empty fame of being his son.

I've become very, very liberal as far as war is concerned. It's just too terrible. I've been to wars and I've seen what happens. I know what it is to be hurt, and it's nothing compared to these guys. To be blind for the rest of your life. To have prosthetic limbs.

For all those who experienced it, the Spanish Civil War was devastating.

Those are serious questions of war and peace, of freedom or tyranny, whether or not there is ever going to be a hope of us instilling some democratic systems in a part of the world that frankly is breeding hate and destruction directed right at us.

The alternative to peace is war, which will expose everyone to mass casualties, misery and a loss of perspective for many years to come.