People From London

"The pressures women face had been something I’d been talking to my girlfriends about for a while. Women have far more options than they used to — there’s a chance to work and have a family, but also an expectation that you can have it all. It’s not an easy thing to make those decisions."

"It’s a lazy comment and people who say that, who say homophobia doesn’t exist, that racism doesn’t exist, they say that from such a privileged place. Usually, it comes from people who are not gay or not a person of colour and just because you haven’t seen it or experienced it doesn’t mean that someone else isn’t experiencing it. Just open your eyes to what is going on in the world!"

"To be honest, when I was growing up, the beauty industry did feel very monocultural. It wasn’t that easy to find people that looked like me or my family - whether you’re talking about advertisements or magazines, or general representation in the media."

"As a little girl, I was quite self-conscious about my Asian features. A few kids made fun of the shape of my eyes. All the Barbies had blond hair and blue eyes, and I remember wishing I didn’t look the way I did – I was the only girl of colour in the area. But now I’ve got older, I’ve realised what makes you different is your strength."

"My mom was born in China, and she grew up in Scotland. And my dad was born in Macau. He grew up in Hong Kong. Then he had a kind of crazy life before he settled down and had kids and married my mom. But he ended up going to college in Scotland, where he met my mom. And then they moved down to London and had my sister and I."

"I think I have a quite holistic kind of approach to it all, which is that I think you should take care of yourself on the inside, but also take care of yourself on the outside, and they will feed each other. My beauty ritual is something that I find very calming. It can definitely give you a lift if you're feeling a bit tired or you're feeling a bit down. You can kind of go through your steps, and it's kind of quite meditative, really."

"Both my parents are immigrants. They came from nothing, had to work so hard, and so the idea for them, I suppose, of taking a risk, that wasn’t a luxury they had. I always knew that was the luxury and privilege that I had, that they had given me."

"I think the appeal for me was several different things. I was quite shy when I was a child and I’d always done drama and music and that was really my outlet where I felt I could be really free. I’ve always been really interested in other people, and other people’s lives, and as an actor you get to experience, to a certain degree, walking in other people’s shoes and seeing things through their eyes. That, for me, was what appealed, I think initially."

"I mean, God. I have friends who are so happily married with 3 children, on their third, some friends who’ve done it who are struggling with elements of it, and other friends who have no interest in it, are free and single. Yeah. It’s weird. I do find it strange that in your 30s, suddenly, you become more aware that, if I’m going to do it, try to have a biological child, I need to think about it now. Sorry, I don’t have anything to add to that."

"When I talk to my friends, there are a number of times little things that happen throughout the day can build up. They can weigh you down and they can get on top of you. That is the sad and terrifying reality that many of us women and men have to face. I think it’s important that we do call people out on it, but ultimately, it’s a pattern of behaviour. It’s all part of a system that I very much don’t see it as men versus women. It’s about us working together to dismantle a system that is really oppressive to all of us."

"I was brought up rather as an English child, so I knew what was expected, and I pretty much always did it. You didn't speak unless spoken to, but it didn't bother me, or have any repercussions. I didn't know anything else."

"Basically, as a child, just like you do with any adult – and at that age, too – I don’t think I really questioned anything. I just felt that they knew what they were doing, and that I would fulfill what was necessary – what they needed me to do – to the best of my ability."

"Have a think about your family, your work colleagues, your friendship circle. Think about five people whom you might begin to have a conversation with about your faith in Jesus Christ. It might be somebody who, during this time of the pandemic, has given up the practice of their faith or somebody who’s searching for deeper meaning because of the experience of disease and death in this past year."

"Buildings are important expressions of our feelings and intentions and provide a common space where we are at home and comfortable, and yet speak of our future. This is especially so with churches, which are extensions of our homes. The sacramental principle is at the heart of Catholicism, and no less so in its buildings."

"Fear motivates us. Sometimes it motivates us toward what we want, but sometimes, if we aren't careful, it limits us with what we think will keep us safe."

"Instead of forever climbing the mountain of success, we need to descend into the valley of our true selves to weed out false beliefs."

"The less time you fixate on everyone else, the more time you have to focus on yourself."

"It feels good to be around people who are good for us; it doesn't feel good to be around people who don't support us or bring out our bad habits."

"When we criticize others, we can't help but notice the bad in ourselves. But when we look for the good in others, we start to see the best in ourselves too."

"Negativity is a trait, not someone's identity. A person's true nature can be obscured by clouds, but, like the sun, it is always there. And clouds can overcome any of us. We have to understand this when we deal with people who exude negative energy. Just like we wouldn't want someone to judge us by our worst moments, we must be careful not to do that to others. When someone hurts you, it's because they're hurt. Their hurt is simply spilling over. They need help."

"When you try to live your most authentic life, some of your relationships will be put in jeopardy. Losing them is a risk worth bearing; finding a way to keep them in your life is a challenge worth taking on."

"Negativity is a trait, not someone’s identity. A person’s true nature can be obscured by clouds, but, like the sun, it is always there. And clouds can overcome any of us. We have to understand this when we deal with people who exude negative energy. Just like we wouldn’t want someone to judge us by our worst moments, we must be careful not to do that to others. When someone hurts you, it’s because they’re hurt. Their hurt is simply spilling over. They need help. And as the Dalai Lama says, “If you can, help others; if you cannot do that, at least do not harm them."

"Remember, saying whatever we want, whenever we want, however we want, is not freedom. Real freedom is not feeling the need to say these things."

"The more we define ourselves in relation to the people around us, the more lost we are."

"When we accept the temporary nature of everything in our lives, we can feel gratitude for the good fortune of getting to borrow them for a time."

"my ambition was to be an English Sondheim. Being a lyricist is the ideal job for a university-educated dilettante, because it uses up all the rubbish in your education."

"It's a very similar process in many ways to doing translation, if you translate an opera or a work were the music is inflexible and the words have to go from language to another you have a similar challenge."

"We think freedom means that we can pursue all our desires. Real freedom is letting go of things not wanted, the unchecked desires that leas us to unwanted ends."

"Transformational forgiveness is linked to a slew of health improvements including: fewer medications taken, better sleep quality, and reduced somatic symptoms including back pain, headache, nausea, and fatigue. Forgiveness eases stress, because we no longer recycle the angry thoughts, both conscious and subconscious, that stressed us out in the first place."

"So many of the very funny things are very natural, we do them all every day. They’re just that little bit heightened, which is what makes you fall on the floor when you’re doing it. Sometimes we can’t finish a take because we’re laughing too much, and sometimes you see the cameraman chuckling and we have to do it again. Not having done many comedies, that must be the sign of a very funny script!"

"I wasn't a religious boy at all, my conversion came later in 1986, but when I was young I found that people said they enjoyed listening to me read in chapel, and I absolutely loved it. As I grew up, when I became an actor I was asked to read passages for various radio programmes and the like. When I became a Christian, and I read the Bible for the first time as a person of faith - reading something that gave me my worldview and my lens - I found it to be the most extraordinary collection of literature, and it formed my way of looking at the world. I realised that the Bible has shaped Western civilisation, and I thought what better thing can I leave behind me? What about the most important book in the world that's barely read at all, even though it's the world's best seller?"

"Really to immobilise your face when you’re in the business of communicating is an oxymoron…is that the right word? It just doesn’t seem to make sense."

"There must be moments in your life where you can instantly recall the melancholy, or the anger, or the grief, and you just step into that for a second and then transfer it to whatever you're doing. It's called transference. That gets easier as you get older. It's just like exercising a muscle. I think it's why a lot of actors are a bit mixed up and a bit neurotic, because if they let go of their neurosis it would become less easy to do that. If you say, you know, let go of that anger Louise, in a way I don't want to because I want to keep it there and use it for my acting"

"Either he’s legally insane or madly in love!’ I pick madly in love – and you can quote me on that."

"I've thought of firing myself multiple times."

"I would desire that every man would lay his hand on his heart, and consider seriously whether the beginning of the people's happiness should be written in letters of blood."

"[T]he earl of Strafford was party in a conspiracy to subvert the fundamental laws and liberties of his country... And if we reflect upon this man's cool-blooded apostasy on the first lure to his ambition, and on his splendid abilities that enhanced the guilt of that desertion, we must feel some indignation at those who have palliated all his iniquities, and even ennobled his memory with the attributes of patriot heroism. Great he surely was, since that epithet can never be denied without paradox to so much comprehension of mind, such ardour and energy, such courage and eloquence; those commanding qualities of soul, which, impressed upon his dark and stern countenance, struck his contemporaries with mingled awe and hate, and still live in the unfading colours of Vandyke. But it may be reckoned as a sufficient ground for distrusting any one's attachment to the English constitution, that he reveres the name of the earl of Strafford."

"A Prince that loseth the Force and Example of his Punishments, loseth withal the greatest Part of his Dominion."

"Divide not between Protestant and Papist. Divide not nationally, betwixt English and Irish. The King makes no distinction betwixt you."

"I have often thought that Strafford was an ideal type, both for governor of Ireland in the 17th century, and governor of India in the 20th century."

"It’s better to be typecast than not cast. When I worked in theatre I played all sorts of roles, everything was open to me- and when working in TV and film initially too."

"Well the work is the work and you just concentrate on the work when you are doing it. But personally I always feel happier in movies, I love making movies. Ever since I can remember I have always wanted to be a movie actor - ever since I first went to the cinema and I looked up and thought "how can I get from here to there?" It has taken a while but I managed it."

"With regards to pacing… when you are recording day after day, eight hours at a stretch, you need to physically as well as mentally pace yourself, so there is a consistency of energy, and comprehension, and especially characterisation."

"Your initial reading of the book is preparation, in order to get the overall shape and mood, to map the plot, and especially to find the voices of the characters. To do that, like a lot of narrators, I visualise them (often using various character actors from the TV or the movies) to give me a mental cue when reading . Unlike a lot of narrators, I rarely mark up my scripts."

"I think it's really sad there's nothing like Hammer anymore. It was like a repertory company, same people, same places. The little studio at Bray was lovely. Working for Hammer was like working for a family. Also, the cooking there was great, best apple pie I've ever had I my life!"

"was, or should be, a key to the treasures of mystical experience, a means of expressing through sub-creation man's unity with the primary Creation of which he is part. It could also, in its highest form, be an expression of the homesickness of the soul in spiritual exile, a longing for that eternal realm for which the soul begins to ache."

"Today, after the Soviet Union's demise, and after the statues of Stalin have been ignominiously toppled, it is easy to forget the sheer enormity of Solzhenitsyn's achievement. Quite simply, what he did was considered to be impossible. It was beyond belief that one man could defy the communist state and survive. It was even more unbelievable that he should not only survive, but that he should play a significant role in the state's downfall and that he should outlive the state itself. Solzhenitsyn's life and example flew in the face of the "reality" of the "realists"."

"Solzhenitsyn has re-written George Orwell's novel, using the facts of his life as his pen. He represents the victory of Winston Smith. Truth, it seems, is not only stranger than fiction; it has a happier ending."

"The authentic presence of goodness is love and its manifestation in virtue; the authentic presence of truth is to be seen in the culture's conformity to reason, properly understood as an engagement with the objective reality beyond the confines of egocentric subjectivism; the authentic presence of the beautiful is a reverence for the beauty of Creation and creativity, properly perceived in the outpouring of gratitude which is the fruit of humility. A society informed and animated by such a culture is truly civilized. A civilized man is not animated by a desire to shape himself into an image of his "self," which is itself unknowable, but is willing to allow himself to be shaped into an image of the perfect Person beyond himself."

"Whether it's conscious or subconscious, intentional or unintentional, a work of art always embodies and incarnates in some sense the deepest-held beliefs of an author. Therefore, an author's theology and philosophy, in the context of the times in which the author lives, are clearly going to inform the work."