Our favourite quotes of 2015 - in pictures

Sarah Dea / The National

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Steve Jennings / Getty Images

Credit Abla Fahita

Pawan Singh / The National

Satish Kumar / The National

Pawan Singh / The National

Ravindranath K / The National

Courtesy Technogym

Courtesy Ermenegildo Zegna

Andy Ford / NME / Time Inc

Chris Pizzello / Invision / AP

Courtesy 20th Century Fox

Jojo Whilden / HBO via AP

Evening Standard / Getty Images

Every week The National’s features department publishes tens of thousands of words, containing hundreds of pearls of wisdom from movers and shakers near and far. We asked our writers to comb their notebooks and archives to come up with some of their favourite quotes of 2015.

“The woman is the pillar of the society, if she is free and happy and loving and beloved, the society and its children are free, happy and loving. It starts and ends with a woman”

Adonis the Arab world's greatest living poet

“We miss our creative childhood games. We would use sticks as bats, and rocks as baseballs, and we would chase a goat’s bone, thrown at sunset so it was less visible and harder for us to find. It was so much fun”

Noura Al Noman Emirati sci-fi author

“When you go up there, you realise there are no borders, no countries, no nationalities. Just Earth. Mother Earth. We should protect this Earth, as who hurts their mother?”

Muhammed Faris the first Syrian, and the second Arab, in space

“Truly this experience has stripped us down to our core and we’re moving forward with our hearts”

Paula Van Oppen, of girl-group G.R.L, on the band's first concert (in Dubai on February 12) since the suicide of bandmate Simone Battle

“Just live! Life is beautiful, full of beautiful men”

Abla Fahita The Arab world's most famous celebrity puppet

“In my community [Marbah], people expect a woman in a hijab to be cloistered from the world. They expect you to go with the flow and become copies of others. Being part of Al Shehhi tribe, it is something peculiar for a woman to appear on TV. So I don’t have a strong community support, but my family and friends have been my greatest source of support”

Mashael Al Shehhi 18-year-old budding Emirati actress from Fujairah

“You have to respect other peoples’ creativity – it’s wrong if you want to literally take something, you can merely be inspired by it. You wouldn’t take money out of someone’s wallet. You have to appreciate the time a designer or artist spends on their work – don’t undermine it”

Fatma AlMulla Emirati designer, on having her work copied by other clothing and accessory brands

“While Instagram is instant, the result is not – people need to trust you, fall in love with you – respect is earned, not given”

Michelle Karam Dubai-based founder of travel blog Travel Junkie Diary, on Instagram and its popularity in the UAE

“We can’t ask people to save something they don’t know, they didn’t see [or] they didn’t experience”

Maitha Al Hameli co-founder of the Abu Dhabi Marine Conservation Group, on conserving the environment

“A person is born to move; not to eat. Today, people act like they are born to eat – and then move if necessary”

Nerio Alessandri founder and president of Technogym

“I really don’t care. Each wrinkle makes us wiser”

Anna Zegna image director of Ermenegildo Zegna

“You know what? I don’t have to hear it much. The people I know who are really sick of the song are my friends who have to deal with their kids going crazy at the back of the car, screaming at the top of their lungs when it comes one. I don’t have kids yet, so I’m kind of off the hook there”

Mark Ronson producer, apologises for creating the biggest song of 2015, Uptown Funk, alongside Bruno Mars

“The first two Evil Dead movies had no rating whatsoever. They functioned best in that environment. They need to be let loose like the savage beast that they are. And the only way that we can bring you the carnage and mayhem that you truly deserve is to be on a network where they don’t have a problem with anything”

Bruce Campbell actor, on the return of The Evil Dead

“It was basically David [Duchovny] and I being the most brilliant characters in the history of television”

Gillian Anderson actress, on TV show The X-Files

“It’s the people with not enough talent that you argue with”

Bill Murray actor, ahead of his special, A Very Murray Christmas

“I am not good at the sort of talk which is a facade and not communication”

Iris Murdoch the American writer to her friend, the French novelist Raymond Queneau. From Living on Paper: Letters from Iris Murdoch 1934-1995