Thanksgiving dinners take eighteen hours to prepare. They are consumed in twelve minutes. Half-times take twelve minutes. This is not coincidence.

I'm well-travelled so I can see places coming up. I went to St. Croix in the West Indies at Christmas and it had been hit by a really bad tornado. Values there have gone down but I guarantee they will be up again in eight years. So I'll get in now while it's cheap as chips.

When I was eight years old I got a dummy for Christmas and started teaching myself. I got books and records and sat in front of the bathroom mirror practising. I did my first show in the third grade and just kept going there was no reason to quit.

I had eight brothers and sisters. Every Christmas my younger brother Bobby would wake up extra early and open everybody's presents - everybody's - so by the time the rest of us got up all the gifts were shredded ribbons off torn open and thrown aside.

May I share with you my earliest memory of a political row? It was with my mother about the Queen - classic Freudian stuff shrinks would say. I was eight and refusing to watch the Queen's Christmas Day broadcast.

Santa is our culture's only mythic figure truly believed in by a large percentage of the population. It's a fact that most of the true believers are under eight years old and that's a pity.

A doctor must work eighteen hours a day and seven days a week. If you cannot console yourself to this get out of the profession.

I have to work really hard eight shows a week to get a nice check as an actor. But when I write a play and it's a - knock wood - hit the checks come in for many years.

For every two minutes of glamour there are eight hours of hard work.

By working faithfully eight hours a day you may eventually get to be boss and work twelve hours a day.

Men reach their sexual peak at eighteen. Women reach theirs at thirty-five. Do you get the feeling that God is playing a practical joke?

No nation can rise to the height of glory unless your women are side by side with you.

That which seems the height of absurdity in one generation often becomes the height of wisdom in another.

The vast upheaval of the World War set in motion forces that will either destroy civilization or raise mankind to undreamed of heights of human welfare and prosperity.

I couldn't be happier that President Bush has stood up for having served in the National Guard because I can finally put an end to all those who questioned my motives for enlisting in the Army Reserve at the height of the Vietnam War.

I wish my parents hadn't made me feel that how I looked was linked to how much they loved me. But I do also see how hard it must be to see your child pile on the pounds and trust they'll find their own way back to a healthy weight.

We all know we have a problem a broad problem. Ninety-eight percent of the fuel that is used by our vehicles our autos and trucks for personal and commercial purposes for highway and air travel operates on oil. The world has the same problem.

We travel to learn and I have never been in any country where they did not do something better than we do it think some thoughts better than we think catch some inspiration from heights above our own.

Air travel is the safest form of travel aside from walking even then the chances of being hit by a public bus at 30 000 feet are remarkably slim. I also have no problem with confined spaces. Or heights. What I am afraid of is speed.

Acting has given me a way to channel my angst. I feel like an overweight pimply faced kid a lot of the time - and finding a way to access that insecurity and put it toward something creative is incredibly rewarding. I feel very lucky.

Digital reading will completely take over. It's lightweight and it's fantastic for sharing. Over time it will take over.

For disappearing acts it's hard to beat what happens to the eight hours supposedly left after eight of sleep and eight of work.

And the buying of new machinery meant not only the possibility of production but even the new technology 'cos as I mentioned before we were back of seven eight years.

The demographic weight of countries such as China and India exercise a massive pressure on our wages and salaries. They have accomplished massive technological advances and the revolution in information technology has reduced the costs of transport.