"Half the art of ballooning is to make your crashes so gentle that you can fool yourself into calling them landings."

“Indeed, the highest pleasure of golf may be that on the fairways and far from all the pressures of commerce and rationality, we can feel immortal for a few hours.”

Source : Colman McCarthy (1977). “The pleasures of the game: the theory free guide to golf”

“If you substitute marijuana for tobacco and alcohol, you'll add eight to 24 years to your life.”

“A book tour is not a good opportunity to let your mind wander. You have to pay attention, remember salespeople's and interviewers' names, succinctly summarize your book in a 'selling' way, and so on.”

“Hold everything earthly with a loose hand, but grasp eternal things with a death-like grip”

“And whenever you encounter a problem, no matter how insurmountable it might seem, there is one simple response that should be ingrained in your behavior: Never give up.”

Source : Stedman Graham (1998). “You Can Make It Happen Every Day”, p.59, Simon and Schuster

“I like women. I really like women.”

“Artists probably should have some impenetrable aspects of themselves.”

Source : "A life in the arts: Simon Callow". Interview with Nicholas Wroe, www.theguardian.com. December 23, 2011.

“My earliest memories about music are connected with going to church and listening to organ music. I am not from a musical family, actually, and I remember my first musical fascination to be for organ music. I wanted to become an organist and not a pianist.”