A garden is a thing of beauty and a job forever.

I make it a point of honour to have a couple of gnomes in my garden as silent testimony to the right of gnome-lovers everywhere to do their own thing without fear of snide remarks.

I have been in the series for over 3 years - 3 series. There will be a fourth series next year which of course I won't be in because I'm now dead. So in total I appeared in 25 episodes.

An hour's hard digging is a good way of getting one's mind back in the right perspective.

I prefer theatre but TV keeps you well known.

I was 20, I was an amateur from 14 but my first professional role was at 22.

Even with talent, it's who you meet at the right time that tips the scales.

I knew absolutely nothing about acting, and had to be taught everything. Some people are born naturals and know how to walk, talk and hold themselves. I didn't and had to learn everything.

If you meet a girl, you meet a girl. It's normal, so if you exchange numbers, whatevs, it's cool.

The university is our culture's assertion that what is made by the mind has value and can convey values.

There is a world of difference between a Mahler eighth note and a normal eighth note.

There are, in effect, two things, to know and to believe one knows; to know is science; to believe one knows is ignorance.

Your decision to walk creates the path ahead

I am not a newcomer, you know, so I want to be judged for what I did when I was prime minister last time in Italy and president of the European Commission for more than five years.

The thing about being a photographer that's so cool is that you get to participate, but you also get to disappear. The camera is in front of your face all the time.

To sit down at a computer every day and write a script is commendable. I don't have the patience for it, but I have some fantastic ideas.

The fear in my heart was like in one of those dreams where you try to run but you can't do it, you can't run because the fear is an anchor in your chest.

A good leader makes a good follower.