“My favourite authors are Milan Kundera and Jeanette Winterson.”

I lend people money, but I’d never lend something that would jeopardise a friendship if I didn’t get it back.

Cinema affects everything, from the way I get dressed to how I build my stages.

I vote Labour and can’t begin to acknowledge anything good that comes from a Tory.

I’m surrounded by friends and family who are not that impressed by celebrity. They don’t have any problem telling me I’m acting like an idiot or I’m not that funny.

I’ve spent a lot of time being bohemian and sleeping on floors, but eventually I want to have kids and I want to bring them up in a secure environment.

I try not to brand myself ‘weird’ any more because it sticks.

Dressing up is like therapy; I feel better in myself when I’ve made an effort.

I don’t have a daily routine, beyond brushing my teeth. It changes every day.

I just have an inability to lie.

We all get old, but I always say the skinny, pretty girls will be screwed.

I think initially, the record industry struggled a lot with digital media because there are a lot of aspects to it that can potentially destroy our industry.

Whatever you are, you have the right to get married.

Some men think that if you’re empowered and sure of yourself then you’re a man-hater, but it’s like, ‘No, I’m just the same as you are, but maybe just a tiny bit more confident.’

All the things that I find beautiful have a darkness about them.

You feel a sense of elation seeing yourself on a billboard.

I’m not that materialistic. I like nice clothes and that, but I don’t spend lots of money on stuff. I’m not really into TV, I don’t have an iPod, I’ve got a gramophone.

One of my methods for developing my own voice in fiction, a process I am taking very slowly and deliberately, is through these very intense encounters with certain writers.

I realized I had some cultural capital to spend, and I wanted to use it to introduce another author who might be considered a risk by conventional publishers. Michael Noll was at the top of my list.

I am so in favor of the actual infinite that instead of admitting that Nature abhors it, as is commonly said, I hold that Nature makes frequent use of it everywhere, in order to show more effectively the perfections of its Author.

The authors pull no punches on the likelihood of increasing tensions and conflicts in a climatically constrained world and spotlight places where possible conflicts may flare up in the 21st century unless climate change is checked.

Deliberately or not, every author is of course present in every book he or she writes – even in a scientific text.

As to the origin of civil Societies or Governments; the Author of our Being, has given Man a Nature to be fitted for, and disposed to Society.

Am I in love? Absolutely. I’m in love with ancient philosophers, foreign painters, classic authors, and musicians who have died long ago. I’m a passionate lover.

This may be the vocation of man: to say “Amen” to being and to the Author of being; to live in defiance of absurdity, notwithstanding futility and defeat; to attain faith in God even in spite of God.