Throughout evolution, ostracism was death indeed.

Love is not an emotion; it is a drive.

Psychologists maintain that the dizzying feeling of intense romantic love lasts only about 18 months to - at best - three years.

The brain was not built to walk into a bar, where you know nobody, and start a conversation. That's not the way humanity has courted.

A lot of people have been romantically in love with somebody who they feel wasn't appropriate to marry.

Haiti is the poorest country in the western hemisphere; some say the poorest in the world.

As societies continue to loosen their standards regarding what is appropriate female and male behavior, I think we are going to realize we have not only underestimated women, but also men.

The only people you and I are likely to know in common are people in the news - politicians, journalists and celebrities.

I suspect privacy is a very new concept to humanity.

Along with our many human propensities, we evolved a huge cerebral cortex with which we make decisions.

Today, American women bear an average of 2.2 children that live to adulthood. Across most of Europe, women bear even fewer young.

Neither gender is routinely more jealous - although women are more willing to work to win back a lover, while men tend to flaunt their money and status and are more likely to walk out to protect their self-esteem or save face.

Most of us make up our minds in the first three minutes of meeting someone whether there's a potential for a relationship.

In general, men are wired to notice obvious signs that convey interest in mating - a warm smile, for example - and ignore other subtleties, like if your lipstick is faded.

Men couldn't care less if your strands are perfectly styled and neat. In fact, he might like you more with some wildness or bedhead, since it shows you're carefree and relaxed.

As a group, anthropologists are not too fond of people who work in the business world.

Scientists know that women gravitate to men who have a different immune system from theirs.

The reason you take antidepressants is to feel calm. And romantic love is not calm - it's elation, it's mood swings, and you're killing all that when you take the drug.

You write your life story by the choices you make. You never know if they have been a mistake. Those moments of decision are so difficult.

I don't believe that if you do good, good things will happen. Everything is completely accidental and random. Sometimes bad things happen to very good people and sometimes good things happen to bad people. But at least if you try to do good things, then you're spending your time doing something worthwhile.

The whole thing of clothes is insane. You can spend a dollar on a jacket in a thrift store. And you can spend a thousand dollars on a jacket in a shop. And if you saw those two jackets walking down the street, you probably wouldn't know which was which.

You can't control how other people see you or think of you. But you have to be comfortable with that.

The trick in life is learning how to deal with it.

I have never in my life found myself in a situation where I've stopped work and said, 'Thank God it's Friday.' But weekends are special even if your schedule is all over the place. Something tells you the weekend has arrived and you can indulge yourself a bit.

Gardening is learning, learning, learning. That's the fun of them. You're always learning.

The great marriages are partnerships. It can't be a great marriage without being a partnership.

Actors are rogues and vagabonds. Or they ought to be.

I am quite spiritual. I believed in the fairies when I was a child. I still do sort of believe in the fairies. And the leprechauns. But I don't believe in God.

I still have a Gypsy sense of adventure. I don't think I have slept in the same bed for more than three or four months my whole life. I am always planting vegetables that I never get to eat and flowers that I never see flower. I have always moved around the world.

Where you grew up becomes a big part of who you are for the rest of your life. You can't run away from that. Well, sometimes the running away from it is what makes you who you are.

I'm under the impression that this notion of decency is disappearing from our society where conflicts are made worse on cinema and on television, where people are nasty and cruel on the Internet and where, in general, everybody seems to be very angry.

I don't like the word 'strong,' because a strong character is never an interesting character. A character is made interesting by their vulnerabilities and their weaknesses.

I am not too keen on my nose, I don't like my knees, I hate my ankles, I am unsure about my behind, I don't like my legs at all. I am not too sure about my chin, my forehead is a bit dodgy. But, overall, I can live with it.

There is that awful moment when you realize that you're falling in love. That should be the most joyful moment, and actually it's not. It's always a moment that's full of fear because you know, as night follows day, the joy is going to rapidly be followed by some pain or other. All the angst of a relationship.

I don't share lots of the phobias that horror movies tap into. I don't mind spiders or snakes or darkness.

I love photography, and I love the art of photography.

Sometimes nudity is sexy. Sometimes it's not. Sometimes being clothed is more sexy than being nude.

I'm not a communist, of course. But I do think that everything is down to economics. Capitalism doesn't change.

It'll be the Internet and piracy that will kill film. There's a philosophy that the Internet should be free, but the reality is that piracy will destroy the film industry and film as an art form because it's expensive to make a movie. Maybe you'll have funky little independent movies, and it'll go back and then start up again some other way.

I think every woman in our culture is a feminist. They may refuse to articulate it, but if you were to take any woman back 40 years and say, 'Is this a world you want to live in?' They would say, 'No.'

I resent having witnessed the survival of some very mediocre male actors and the professional demise of the very brilliant female ones.

We're all idiots when we're young. We don't think we are, but we are. So we should be.

The role of women has always been undervalued in the spy world, always undermined in terms of recognition. Unfairly so. It's a world that needs women.

I drink just as much tea when I'm in Los Angeles as I do when I'm in London. I take my tea bags with me wherever I go.

When you're young, you wonder what all these old people are droning on about, trying to impart their wisdom. It's not relevant to you because being young is such a specific thing. Thank God for that. Thank God for the young people who go out and demonstrate against rampant capitalism or whatever.

Two phrases I hate in reference to female characters are 'strong' and 'feisty.' They really annoy me. It's the most condescending thing. You say that about a three-year-old. It infantilises women.

There's no good way to waste your time. Wasting time is just wasting time.

Painters hate having to explain what their work is about. They always say, 'It's whatever you want it to be' - because I think that's their intention, to connect with each person's subconscious, and not to try and dictate.

Flesh sells. People don't want to see pictures of churches. They want to see naked bodies.

I still suffer terribly from stage fright. I get sick with fear. Not every night, but at the beginning and on occasion - not necessarily when I'm expecting it. You just have to cope with it - take it on the chin and work through it, trying to use the adrenalin to perform.