Brummies run themselves down, they're very self-deprecating. Whereas Yorkshire people certainly aren't.

I like extremely effeminate dogs like terriers or schnauzers. I make an exception for giant schnauzers and big poodles. Basically, I like dogs which can be dyed day-glo colours.

You always have to find something to say about the subject and in seven cases out of ten there is nothing to say.

I'm not against architecture per se, I'm just against bad architecture.

I like looking at the countryside as well as anyone... a little countryside goes a long way, but it's almost like the DNA of a civilisation is in its cities.

I think television is a medium which has the potential to do great things but has been traduced by these... terrible people who rise through the ranks.

I genuinely find it difficult to think of places that I'd never want to see again. It might be because part of my career has been concerned with writing about topography.

The only bright feature of cultural relativism's triumph is that it has become establishment orthodoxy and will thus one day be derided, resisted and overthrown.

I do make myself be interested in places in a way that I don't make myself be interested in people.

When I started writing fiction it always seemed in retrospect (I didn't realise at the time) that it was always caused by environments rather than by incidents and characters.

If you have slightly pathological interest in all the components of places, it forces you to engage with them in a way that perhaps otherwise you wouldn't, and that's the only way I can put it.

Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers.

The secret of the power of Christianity is not in its ethics. It is not in Christian ideas or philosophy . . .the secret of Christianity is found . . . in the Lord Jesus Christ.

You can't be creative without criticism. If your life is without critics then maybe you are painting your life's masterpiece with only a broken brown crayon.

So I sang out the barbarous words - karaoke from Hell.

But the sky is interesting, it changes all the time.

You can have a good vibe and a good feeling about something, but you never really know how it's going to be received and how an audience is going to react to it.

I like being able to do anything. I think that's healthy, doing anything and everything, rather than just getting completely obsessed with one particular genre or particular kind of work.

God let it be known that it is better to give than to receive, but a lot of people failed to get the message.

You guys (E.L.F.) are all so precious for me. Can't be changed with other things.

It's good to leave behind all that is comfortable and known every so often. It opens one's mind to the wide world.