A man of strength and wisdom John Paul became an inspiration to generations of both Catholics and non-Catholics throughout the world by encouraging freedom promoting peace and respecting all faiths.

I know I had my equivalents in Adrian Lester and Lenny James when I was at drama school. I remember David Harewood doing 'Othello' at the National and Adrian Lester having done Cheek by Jowl's famous 'As You Like It and Company' at the Donmar. Not necessarily performances I saw but just the fact they happened was massively encouraging.

My mom has made it possible for me to be who I am. Our family is everything. Her greatest skill was encouraging me to find my own person and own independence.

As a small business owner for the last 15 years when I think of what truly changed my life it was my faith a strong family my mom did a really really good job of encouraging me in very clear and discernible ways.

The meme for blind faith secures its own perpetuation by the simple unconscious expedient of discouraging rational inquiry.

The failure of Socialism since 1945 is that whilst encouraging us all the creators of wealth to produce less through strikes it has caused us all to demand a higher level of our own product.

My father respected and admired my mother and was a person who was always standing by my side encouraging me to do more and believed in my capacity. So in that sense my own experience was very good in becoming an empowered woman. From early on I carried that strong message: 'You can do it.' So I never had any doubt that women can do a lot.

This is at the heart of all good education where the teacher asks students to think and engages them in encouraging dialogues constantly checking for understanding and growth.

We have a limit a very discouraging humiliating limit: death.

I was very sad to hear of the death of Ronnie Barker who was such a warm friendly and encouraging presence to have when I started in television. He was also a great comic actor to learn from.

If I am to be known for anything I would like it to be for encouraging Canadians for knowing a little bit about their daily extraordinary courage. And for wanting that courage to be recognized.

In the long term we can hope that religion will change the nature of man and reduce conflict. But history is not encouraging in this respect. The bloodiest wars in history have been religious wars.

I was born in ancient times at the end of the world in a patriarchal Catholic and conservative family. No wonder that by age five I was a raging feminist - although the term had not reached Chile yet so nobody knew what the heck was wrong with me.