I couldn't make sense of things. But then I began the process of civilising myself and trying to become a decent human being. I'm still working on it.

Even now I can't stand being recognized in the street. I just hate it when strangers come up and try to talk to me. I'm pathologically shy.

I was racing through life, utterly confused and angry. I don't know if I was out of control; it was more like I felt frustrated with myself and everything I saw happening around me.

The whole fame and fortune thing is addictive.

I've had a blessed career, and that has been acknowledged in many ways over the years.

I've gradually grown more comfortable with who I am and what I am.

I went from being totally unknown to getting stopped every time I went out. I always wanted to be successful, but I have never wanted to become a celebrity. I never, ever, craved that.

If you think before you speak the other guy gets his joke in first.

I find it very hard to play a part, then take it off like a cheap suit and become Mr Normal - Mr. Nice Guy.

The older I've got, the easier I've found it to accept myself. I think I've finally learnt not to beat myself up so much.

If we were really tough on crime, we'd try to save our children from the desperation and deprivation that leave them primed for a life of crime.

You must work well with others and be loyal to your team. Disloyalty is the worst of all traits. I seldom use the words "You're fired!" in business, unless somebody is really scum and stole from me.

I do not like the man who squanders life for fame; give me the man who living makes a name.

I grew up in poverty. For 25 years I was fed on aid.

Laughter is easier minute by minute, spilled with prodigality, tipped out at a cheerful word.

It's a very strange silence that I'm living in right now. It's a silence that has a lot of activity and noise in it from a zone that I don't live in on this earth.

I am sticking as closely to my subject as I can; for my subject is precisely this, that it is the masses, the majority

In politics, an organized minority is a political majority.

As a writer, I write to see. If I knew how it would end, I wouldn't write. It's a process of discovery.

Sabbath is not simply the pause that refreshes. It is the pause that transforms.