"Private opinion is weak, but public opinion is almost omnipotent."

"Military hardliners called me a 'security threat' for promoting peace in South Asia and for supporting a broad-based government in Afghanistan."

"I found that a whole series of people opposed me simply on the grounds that I was a woman. The clerics took to the mosque saying that Pakistan had thrown itself outside the Muslim world and the Muslim umar by voting for a woman, that a woman had usurped a man's place in the Islamic society."

"Pakistan is heir to an intellectual tradition of which the illustrious exponent was the poet and philosopher Mohammad Iqbal. He saw the future course for Islamic societies in a synthesis between adherence to the faith and adjustment to the modern age."

"To know that one has a secret is to know half the secret itself."

"The first hour of the morning is the rudder of the day."

"A grindstone that had not grit in it, how long would it take to sharpen an ax? And affairs that had not grit in them, how long would they take to make a man?"

"There never was a person that did anything worth doing who did not really receive more than he gave"

"All words are pegs to hang ideas on."

"Expedients are for the hour, but principles are for the ages."

"The meanest, most contemptible kind of praise is that which first speaks well of a man, and then qualifies it with a ''But''."

"The moment an ill can be patiently handled, it is disarmed of its poison, though not of its pain."

"Those who can bear all can dare all."

"We should expect the best and the worst of mankind, as from the weather."

"We discover in others what others hide from us, and we recognize in others what we hide from ourselves."

"Generosity gives assistance, rather than advice."

"Necessity delivers us from the embarrassment of choice"

"Everyone is born sincere and die deceivers."

"Great men undertake great things because they are great; fools, because they think them easy"

"The fruit derived from labor is the sweetest of all pleasures"

"I got into acting as a young child on account of a sort of arbitrary thing. A friend of my mom's was a casting director, so really, as kind of a lark, I had a couple of acting jobs that had just enough exposure to give me the option to continue if I wanted to. I followed through with it."

"Making movies has become such a golden ring, and it's all such a big business, that the rewards system has gotten totally out of whack. Suddenly, you're treated in a manner befitting someone who is actually an important person."

"I really think that everybody would like to be an actor. Why wouldn't they? It's great work if you can get it. The one thing that prevents most people from saying, 'I'm just gonna go to Hollywood!' is that it seems unrealistic."

"I started as a child, in this PBS series 'Voyage of the Mimi,' which led to driving down to New York for 'Afterschool Special' auditions, which led to moving to Los Angeles. I wanted to be an actor. But in L.A., I got into film technology, and I was building cheap editing systems and would edit my friend's acting reels."