Quotes on Life

Ah! the clock is always slow; it is later than you think.

Regret is useless in life. It's in the past. All we have is now.

My life is sectioned off into hot flushes, pursuits of this or that.

How can we know the dancer from the dance?

I had the sense when I looked back over my life I would actually see a mess of decisions, a few of which I had thought about, some of which I had sort of stumbled on and many that I had no control over whatsoever.

Even though I spent the first five years of my life in Nagasaki, going to Japan can be really difficult. Even if they know I've been brought up in the West, they still expect me to understand all the subtleties of their culture, and if I get it wrong, it matters much more than if a British person gets it wrong. I find it intimidating.

The truth is, I'm just a rough old New Zealander who has enjoyed many challenges in his life.

Security is when everything is settled, when nothing can happen to you; security is the denial of life.

Life is a comedy for those who think and a tragedy for those who feel.

I'm a gay man who came out when I was 10 years old, and there's nothing in my life that I'm prouder of.

Truth exists, only falsehood has to be invented.

Let us do our duty in our shop or our kitchen, in the market, the street, the office, the school, the home, just as faithfully as if we stood in the front rank of some great battle, and knew that victory for mankind depended on our bravery, strength, and skill. When we do that, the humblest of us will be serving in that great army which achieves the welfare of the world.

Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.

Our being is subject to all the chances of life. There are so many things we are capable of, that we could be or do. The potentialities are so great that we never, any of us, are more than one-fourth fulfilled.

What does it mean to be an oncologist? It means that you get to sit in at a moment of another person's life that is so hyper-acute, and not just because they're medically ill. It's also a moment of hope and expectation and concern.

I think that a lot of people in all walks of life have the impression, of course, that, 'I specialize in something. I can't - I don't have the time to read other things. I'll just go to pure entertainment when I'm relaxing, and then I'll come back to my pure specialty.' That produces - that attitude produces idiot savants, unfortunately.

You can wish to have an Oscar someday or some other award, but Life Achievement? You don't see yourself that way.

Of all the things which wisdom provides to make us entirely happy, much the greatest is the possession of friendship.

You can run, run, run away from a lot of things in life, but you can't run away from yourself. And the key to happiness is to understand and accept who you are.

The cross reveals that we're called to a deeper, fuller experience of what it means to be alive and open to new dimensions of life which our religious boundaries - creeds, atonement theologies - have kept us from experiencing.

Far from being dead, physical media has years of life left and must be preserved because there is no better alternative.