"By the way, Doctor, I shall want your cooperation.''I shall be delighted.''You don't mind breaking the law?''Not in the least.''Nor running a chance of arrest?''Not in a good cause.''Oh, the cause is excellent!''Then I am your man.''I was sure that I might rely on you."

"I actually hated dancing. My mum used to have to bribe me to go by buying me things. A year before I stopped going, I was going to go for an audition with the Royal Ballet. It turned out I was a year too young. Because I was tall, they thought I was older. But before I had the chance to go back, I quit."

"There are times when your body takes control. Times when the gazelle says, ‘Fuck you, lioness,’ and delivers the biggest kick of its whole gazelley life."

"I'm different, and I have to be a warrior to be that way. But I have had some success; I hope I have touched the lives of some wonderful people, all by being what I see as myself but some others people see as different."

"If your mom asks you to do the dishes, do not pull out your pirate attitude. But if someone tells you you're not good enough, says your dreams are too lofty, or claims there is no room in showbiz for a dancing violinist - well then, by all means, pull out your eye patch, my friend, and take to the high seas."

"The foundation of the house of civil rights is in the voices of all the great civil rights leaders and the soul of every person who heard them. It's in the hands of every person who folded a leaflet for change, and it's in the courage of every person who changed."

"When you question this war on poverty, you get all the criticisms from adherents to the status quo who just don't want to see anything change. We got to have the courage to face that down, just as we did in the welfare reform of the late 1990s, and if we succeeded, we can help resuscitate this culture and get people back to work."