“There’s no doubt that I do have extremes of mood that are greater than just about anybody else I know.”

As someone who worked hard for a Labour victory in the 90s, do I regret it? Not really. It was bound to happen. And it’ll happen with the next government, and the one after it. Because all governments serve us. They serve the filth.

My life, at least, is divided between writing and performing and mixtures of the two.

I shouldn’t be saying this – high treason, really – but I sometimes wonder if Americans aren’t fooled by our accent into detecting brilliance that may not really be there.

I think we have all experienced passion that is not in any sense reasonable.

It is exhausting knowing that most of the time the phone rings, most of the time there’s an email, most of the time there’s a letter, someone wants something of you.

It was extremely important to show that Wilde’s sexuality was not just some intellectual idea. It was real, and it was about the human body. To just have mentioned it and not shown it would have been, I think, peculiar and wrong.

Having a great intellect is no path to being happy.

I think my view is that whenever you project into the future you’re never likely to be accurate in the details, or the paraphernalia and style. It’s in the spirit of it.

There is no particular Socratic or Dimechian or Kantian way to live your life. They don’t offer ethical codes and standards by which to live your life.

Generally, we admire the thing we are not.

I don’t watch television, I think it destroys the art of talking about oneself.

But if one could go back in time, I’d love to have been directed by Howard Hawks, who’s one of my great heroes. One of the greatest directors there ever was. He directed probably one of the greatest westerns of all time in ‘Rio Bravo’.

They are just 100 per cent bear, whereas human beings feel we’re not 100 per cent human, that we’re always letting ourselves down. We’re constantly striving towards something, to some fulfilment.

I’d probably want to teach at university, because children would drive me insane. I suspect it would be English literature, Shakespeare and so forth. I’ve always been deeply, deeply in love with that kind of thing.

Somehow, as a writer, you tend to use words to paper over structural cracks.

I have pushed the boat out as far as I should in terms of taking on too many things. I’m getting older and I just could not take it any more. I am now monitoring myself very closely and I’m just trying not to get into that sort of state again.

Anybody who can drive and doesn’t come out of it a rich man is a fool.

We want to get people laughing; we don’t want to offend anybody.

Anybody who knows me… when I’m tired, I sleep with my eyes open.

My motto is never to try to imitate anybody: I have always looked inward and followed the inward voice.

I didn’t want to admit I had problems. I just let ’em build up. I didn’t want anybody to know I was hurtin’.

The thing about music is that nobody listens to it unless it’s real. I don’t think that you can fool anybody for too long in music. And you certainly can’t fool everybody.

I got more songs with Gunna than anybody – that’s like the only person who I’m around!

Nobody wants to get hurt. Nobody wants to hurt anybody. We would all like to be able to live an uncluttered life.