A year after winning the Oscar, almost to the day, I was directing a dog food commercial.

I wish I'd known that one day the geek would inherit the Earth.

Keep going and don't give up. You're doing wonderfully. You'll know how to fly this thing eventually.

I suppose I just like being arty. That's all. Arty.

I'd say, don't listen to what anyone says: you're good. Go put your anorak on. Get your thick bottle-top specs. Draw your little cartoons and your comics and keep writing to the BBC.

I love people where, at the end of the day, they'll pick up a paintbrush and paint clouds. They can physically make things.

There is no such thing as too much swearing. Swearing is just a piece of linguistic mechanics. The words in-between are the clever ones.

I found American actors quite scary because they're brilliant actors and brilliantly funny, and they never stopped once you wound them up... off they went and they just deliver fantastic stuff.

I'm not an extravagant man. The fact that I can have a coffee out whenever I want still makes me feel grateful.

Every viewer who ever turned on Doctor Who has taken him into his heart. He belongs to all of us.

The older I get, the more I think lightness of touch is an incredibly difficult thing to do.

It was true. She was his soul’s star. His heart ignited every time she came into the room, flared with every just-so gesture. Anything she touched became instantly talismanic.

Serenity is when I realized I'm blessed with beautiful nature around.

Don't you know this, that words are doctors to a diseased temperment?

Certain media attracts more pulpy or low-brow things, especially when they're young. Finding the best story, in any particular medium, is going to be as good, in any other medium.

It's easier to die when you have lived than it is to die when you haven't.

Personally, when I'm picking friends, I like the ones who don't make me cry myself to sleep.

There is no reason to believe that the Holy Spirit ever leaves awakened sinners, only as they leave the truth of God for some error or sin.

After 30 years in Brussels, I can tell you: The relationship between the Commission and the Parliament has probably never been as good as it is now.

The despairing soul is a rebel.

As a kid, I was mischievous, necessarily, but I always wanted to do adventurous stuff.