I grew up in Birmingham, but my parents are originally from Barbados. My dad, Romeo, was a long-distance lorry driver, and my mother, Mayleen, worked in catering.

I always get this feeling on my last day of work that I'm never going to work again.

When I think about my children and how different their futures might be as a result of climate change, it makes me determined to do something about it.

Art is all about the experience. I could say I dont really relate to opera, but then you watch Placido Domingo, and you go, Blimey, look at that.

At school, I was the classroom clown - I was always being thrown out for being naughty. Before I left, a teacher called me in and suggested I became an actor.

For all its problems, I found South Africa a beautiful country, interesting and inspiring.

Normally for work I will fly business class.

New York is vibrant, sexy, naughty, always surprising, and has great live music and great fashion.

Working at the National Theatre is just wonderful. There is no place like the South Bank on a summer's afternoon.

Forget fashion, dress for comfort and for ease of getting through security, so no hats, belts or unnecessary accessories.

Fatherhood is a joy. I feel very lucky to have a family. It gives you a perspective on things.

A soul that knows it is loved but does not itself love betrays its sediment: what is at bottom comes up."―Epigrams and Interludes, Section 79

We juggle priceless eggs in variable gravity. I am afraid. I will taste fear until I die.

Too many of our preferences reflect nasty behaviours and states of mind that were genetically adaptive in the ancestral environment. Instead, wouldn't it be better if we rewrote our own corrupt code?

When a kid can understand that a word can mean two things, there's some real thinking going on. They have a vested interest in finding out what a word means, because it's the punch line to a joke.

Find something in your life worth fighting for

To a suicide: You just poisoned the wrong person.

I've always felt kind of like an outsider, even when I was very successful back in the old days. Even then. I kind of enjoyed it, really.

After knowledge comes wisdom. After wisdom comes understanding.

The Great Beast is the only object of idolatry , the only ersatz of God , the only imitation of something which is infinitely far from me and which is I myself.

I write only because There is a voice within me That will not be still