But, actually, so many of the clerics that I've met, particularly the Church of England clerics, are people of such extraordinary smugness and arrogance and conceitedness who are extraordinarily presumptuous about the significance of their position in society.
The word 'eavesdropper' originally referred to people who, under the pretence of taking in some fresh air, would stand under the 'eavesdrip' of their house - from which the collected raindrops would fall - in the hopes of catching any juicy tid-bits of information that might come their way from their neighbour's property.
I love the idea of spies in love. How would it work between two people who were so programmed to lie and be suspicious, who have a whole life based on pretence?
I've heard stories of people, even celebrities that have gone online, pretended to be someone they weren't, and conducted a 5-year friendship via e-mail. Then, they got married because they really love each other from all that communication.
It has been a pleasure to play with all these artists. Pretenders was a real highlight, but also Damon, aka Badly Drawn Boy, Sinead... Ian Brown... all of these people I learn from and love to work with.
Nobody I represent is pretending to be the pope or a role model for young people. People have to live their lives. They have the right to smoke if they want.
Donald Trump, an oft-bankrupt make-believe mogul clown with a television show where he pretends to fire America's saddest former celebrities, is one of the Republican Party's most prominent national figures because he is on TV and people have heard of him.
As for my relationship to Beethoven, I admire people who can say what they really think. It's as though he's saying, 'That's how I feel about the world, and I don't care what people may say.' His music is pure and honest. Beethoven never pretends to be anybody else.
Trump makes no pretense about being the commander in chief of all of the country, being president of all of the people, including the people who voted against him. He is, in effect, a tribal chieftain who has declared war on half of the country.
Sometimes you just wonder whether people just don't have the sensitivity or decency. I'm a member of the media myself: I host a talk show. I know sometimes when you want to ask something, you can circumvent it with words and vocabulary. You don't suddenly just go out there and ask something directly in the pretense of being absolutely candid.
In America, after 9/11, and after the death of bin Laden, and after two wars, one of them fought, a lot of people think, on false pretenses, and definitely post the Patriot Act, there are a lot of these questions about what can we do to our citizens in order to prevent the next attack.
Great artists are people who find the way to be themselves in their art. Any sort of pretension induces mediocrity in art and life alike.
I actually want to write a treatise in defence of pretension. I think the word 'pretension' has become like the word 'ironic' - just this catch-all term to distance people from interesting experiences and cultural engagement and possible embarrassment.
You can't be pretentious about what we do, because at the end of the day, movies are about entertainment, and if people get 10 dollars' worth, then that's okay.
I just could not believe that 30 years later we're still looking at people who are supposed to write little 2-minute pop that when they actually try to do something that's a little bit more they regard it as pretentious.
With Instagram and Twitter, you're constantly looking at other people and comparing yourself to them, and it's just not beneficial. There is always going to be someone skinnier or prettier or with better skin, and that same girl you're looking at is comparing herself to someone else.
The truth is, I just don't have the drive to be the prettiest and the thinnest. I can be happy for other people for their beauty.
Critics can be harsh and I think it's going to take me a long time to make people see what I have inside of me and that I really put my guts into movies and that I'm not superficial and that I'm not just a pretty face.
People saw me as just a singer - yeah, a pretty face who could sing - and not more than that.
People think I don't have substance and I'm just another pretty face.
