“A gentleman … sleeps at his work. That’s what work’s for. Why do you think they have the SILENCE notices in the library?”

If you are flattering a woman, it pays to be a little more subtle.

A comedy is just a tragedy interrupted, I once said. Do you finish with the kiss or when she opens her eyes to tell him she loves him and sees blonde hairs on his collar?

What is considered sane in writers is made for the rest of the human race.

The darker the subject, the more light you must try to shed on the matter. And vice versa.

Few women care to be laughed at and men not at all, except for large sums of money.

There is a school of thought that believes that sleep is for the night. You appear to be out to disprove them.

Whatever devices you use should always be there to serve the theme. If the theme has been overtaken by the device, then something’s wrong.

You don’t have to bother with men, they believe any compliment automatically.

Cats names are more for human benefit. They give one a certain degree more confidence that the animal belongs to you.

I think of a plot, I think of an idea, and then I wonder, How can I get that onto the stage?.

So as not to disturb me in my little nook behind the biography shelves.

Custard pie humour is fairly universal, but at the other end, which I’m more interested in, there’s the humour that hovers on the darkness, that walks in the shadow of something else, not always that obvious.

Plays by Alan Ayckbourn have been attracting larger audiences in the regional theatres than those of Shakespeare.

What I find interesting is how close you can run the laughter along the seam of seriousness, and occasionally cross it, so that half the house genuinely doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

As a writer one is allowed to have conversations with oneself.

He really is terribly heavy going. Like running up hill in roller skates.

Anytime you have an opportunity as an actor to really grow along with your character, I think thats a real gift.

I want – I want – I want – was all that she could think about – but just what this real want was she did not know.

Since then mountains and torrential rivers and whatever separates and alienates have been cast between us, and even if we wanted to get together, we couldn’t. But when you now think of that little footbridge, words fail you and you sob and marvel.

People don’t need to necessarily see me in the jersey to understand who I am and what message I’m trying to get across with the things that I’m marketing.

I think you really have to become a parent to understand what you will endure to be there for your kids.

It is, I think, an error to believe that there is any need of religion to make life seem worth living.

I think marriage and athletes is a bad combination.

I actually think film and TV are sort of the same thing now. To me they’re all motion pictures. There’s a camera, a script, other actors and a director. Doing a sitcom is a little different.