I don't envy young Brits crossing the Atlantic to make their fortunes today.

People in London think of London as the center of the world, whereas New Yorkers think the world ends three miles outside of Manhattan.

I miss being fawned over by restaurateurs and chefs.

I expect that in 40 years' time I'll be writing political tomes and working for an organisation like Oxfam.

I tried being a mechanic and I tried catering, but I realized I had even less aptitude for semi-skilled labour than for academic work.

Everyone said to me growing up, "You're like an American. You have to go to America. That's your spiritual home."

My life's ambition is to play a James Bond villain. I have the cat and the eye-patch, so I'm just waiting for the call. For some reason, though, the phone hasn't rung.

I've become a professional failure - in order to pay the mortgage I have to remain unemployed. Luckily, a disaster always seems to befall me at exactly the right moment.

Top Chef is a very smooth-running machine. All the people working there are incredibly professional and absolutely at the top of their game.

I wouldn't describe myself as a master of anything.

There's no reason why you can't deliver a grammar-school curriculum to an all-ability intake.

There are some people who walk into your life and shed a new light in your entire being. Be grateful to such people.

You can be confident and secure and know that you do a good job at what you do but you don't have to be arrogant about it.

First we form habits, then they form us.

Guess I am going to take a man-nap. Wake me up when there is food.

Nature does not proceed in a straight line, it is rather a sprawling development.

We have no higher life that is really apart from other people. It is by imagining them that our personality is built up; to be without the power of imagining them is to be a low-grade idiot.

What you do for yourself is one thing. What you do for others is something else entirely.

Never dig up in unbelief what you have sown in faith.

The seeds of great discoveries are constantly floating around us, but they only take root in minds well-prepared to receive them.

The sun never sets on my gallery.