“A book is a device to ignite the imagination.”

God doesn’t do notes, either. Did Jesus Christ say, “Can I be excused the Crucifixion?” No!

There is no such thing as a good script, onlya good film, and I’m conscious that my scripts often read better than they play.

Of course they’re out of date. Standards are always out of date. That is what makes them standards.

It seems to me the mark of a civilized society that certain privileges should be taken for granted such as education, health care and the safety to walk the streets.

The longer I practise medicine, the more convinced I am there are only two types of cases: those that involve taking the trousers off and those that don’t.

Here I sit, alone at 60, Bald and fat and full of sin Cold the seat, and loud the cistern As I read the (Harpic) (Lysol) tin

The thing I think about is that once you’ve done it, you then start to think about what you’re going to do next.

You don’t put your life into your books, you find it there.

They may not have two spondees to rub together but they still want to pen their saga untrammelled by life-threatening activities like trailing round Sainsbury’s, emptying the dishwasher or going to the nativity play.

What I’m above all primarily concerned with is the substance of life, the pith of reality.

I’ve never forgotten that experience. But I had nobody at school that was either like Hector or Irwin.

Never read the Bible as if it means something. Or at any rate don’t try and mean it. Nor prayers.

I was an only child. I lost both my parents. By the time I was twenty I was bald. I’m homosexual.

Your whole life is on the other side of the glass. And there is nobody watching.

Children always assume the sexual lives of their parents come to a grinding halt at their conception.

I had no idea of who could play it, no notion really. Then Richard came to see us but I don’t think it was decided at that meeting.