Margaret Thatcher
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 1979–1990; Leader of the Conservative Party 1975–1990; MP for Finchley 1959–1992
C. S. Lewis - his works were very, very important during my time there. We had discussion groups. I did become more attracted to it although I still attended the Methodist church. If you read Lewis. Then until this day, he did the lectures, something like christian behaviour and 'the screwtape letters', and we were all discussing them. I thought some of his work was the most illuminating to people reaching out to christianity because you're always questioning particularly at that age and you're looking for reassurance and for answers. Indeed you go on questioning throughout your life.
Recorded
Chris Ogden, Time magazine, No. 10 Downing Street, Margaret Thatcher Foundation, from Thatcher MSS (Churchill Archive Centre), 16 January 1989
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Elie Wiesel
Writer and human rights advocate; Nobel Peace Prize laureate, 1986
I remember the awakening that occurred in me when I read, for the first time, Franz Kafka. ... That morning I was happy. I wanted to run out and embrace them, all these garbage collectors, because they taught me that there was another world than the world of Kafka, which is absurd and desperate, and despairing.
Recorded
Academy of Achievement interview, 29 June 1996
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Anthony Kennedy
Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, 1988–2018
I think fiction is very important because it gets us into the mind of a person. Hamlet is a tremendous piece of literature. You know Hamlet better than you know most real people. Do you know the reason? Because you know what he’s thinking. And this teaches you that every human has an integrity and an autonomy and a spirituality of his own, of her own, and great literature can teach you that.
Recorded
Academy of Achievement recorded interview, American Academy of Achievement, 3 June 2005
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Mohamed ElBaradei
Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, 1997-2009; Nobel Peace Prize 2005
Well, many. I think Steinbeck, for example, was one of my favorites, Somerset Maugham, Hemingway. Quite a few.