“You work for it. You don’t have to massage it, so that it fits into the way it has to be. He’s just too vigorous a writer and the dialogue is too sparking to do anything other than inhabit it and give it as much truth as you can.”

Then the challenge is, once you left brain it and build it, then when you’re on stage you have to know it so well that you can get lost in it. I don’t want to be onstage looking like a robot,

God knew we would make mistakes. Life is all about mistakes. It is constant change and growth. Our greatest challenges in life will one day be known to us as our greatest teachers.

One of the most important disciplines in journalism is to challenge your working premises.

You have a challenge; never quit!

[on BBC’s Sherlock] It’s a rare challenge, both for the audience and an actor, to take part in something with this level of intelligence and wit. You have to really enjoy it. It’s a form of mental and physical gymnastics.

Permaculture challenges what we’re doing and thinking – and to that extent it’s sedition.

I guess I just like to challenge myself and push myself harder to do things that I dont think I can, to do things that other people do not think I can. It pushes me. I push my own personal limits.

I need a little criticism while I make a record so that I kind of feel like: okay, I know that I’m doing the best that I can do because someone is actually here challenging it.