It was so draining. Going to parties to rub elbows with so-and-so and act like it's no big deal when really all I was doing was hoping I'd have the success they had.

Whatever I lack in size and strength and speed I kind of make up for in being grittier. When it comes to something like basketball I'm definitely not the best guy on the court but I love elbowing and pushing people out or boxing them out.

It's like being at the kids' table at Thanksgiving - you can put your elbows on it you don't have to talk politics... no matter how old I get there's always a part of me that's sitting there.

I met in the street a very poor young man who was in love. His hat was old his coat worn his cloak was out at the elbows the water passed through his shoes - and the stars through his soul.

Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance therefore not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones.

When I meet people who say - which they do all of the time - 'I must just tell you my great aunt had cancer of the elbow and the doctors gave her 10 seconds to live but last I heard she was climbing Mount Everest ' and so forth I switch off quite early.

I've had extraordinary good luck with my health other than a broken elbow.

To say yes you have to sweat and roll up your sleeves and plunge both hands into life up to the elbows. It is easy to say no even if saying no means death.

Those who remember Washington's cold war culture in the 1980s will recall the shocked reactions to Reagan's intervention. People interested in foreign policy were astonished when in 1985 he met alone at Geneva - alone not a single strategic thinker at his elbow! - with the Soviet Communist master Gorbachev.