"I saw among them, much merit - much patient suffering - wonderful endurance - industry - care and desire to be and to…"

"My desire for information was, however, too strong to be turned aside and often have I been sent away from a bookstal…"

"I taught myself decimals, equations, the square, cube, and biquadrate roots. I got some knowledge of logarithms, and …"

"I was sometimes brought to a standstill, and at times almost despaired of making further progress... I knew no one of…"

"It may be supposed that I led a miserable life but I did not I was very far indeed from being miserable at this time …"

"I can imagine nothing except being a footman or common soldier as more degrading than being either a barber or a tailor."

"At the age of twenty, Place had worked through the histories of Greece and Rome and some translated works of Greek an…"

"I never really had any aspirations to be an actor when I was young. I wanted to play the piano in a bar, to be the ol…"

"If I do decide one day to stop acting, I just hate the idea of people going: 'Oh, did you ever do anything else besid…"

"I don't really know how to act, I kind of wanted to somehow make it real, and one of the ways I've always thought mak…"