I remember when the first police scary video thing came out, and you thought, wow, ooh, look at this, come and look, come and look. And now it's on every channel.

I'd much rather have sat there and just been a fly on the wall, instead of having to smile at people. I'd rather have been a waitress. Just gone round and stared at people.

People ask could I have written the show I wrote in 1990 now, and I don't think I could. I think it's much easier to offend people nowadays. People have grown quite sensitive, I think.

No, sometimes we just have to take liberties because the idea was so good. I wish we'd just gone with the idea that Patsy had been a man. It would have been fantastic.

The reason they keep it so tight is that no one liked them, so that without each other, actually, they couldn't exist. They support each other. They support their flaws and everything else.

Instant coffee is just old beans that have been cremated.

I think people love to be noticed, they love to feel included. A lot of people are flattered if you, you know, if you make jokes about them, or I think because it means they're known.

At home, I relax by gardening, or just pottering.

Me just being myself in public or on TV is the biggest nightmare in the world.

I grew up with a mother who, every time she saw something, would say, I'm going to look that up. And I've become that person - I've become the reference-book person.

Well, I'm lucky because, you see, I'll probably bounce back from this role.

The great opportunity you are daring to get may not come at once. But it is possible that this opportunity is hidden in the tiny ones you neglect every day.

Your choices are half chance, so are everybody else's.

I work to take care of my family, not the other way around.

There's always someone in every group of friends that nobody likes.

I had my appendix out when I was 11, and that was the last time I was in a hospital. That was a one-night deal. So I've spent basically one night in a hospital.

Read to live, not live to read.

There is something incomparably thrilling in first opening a brand new book.

I go to books and to nature as a bee goes to the flower, for a nectar that I can make into my own honey.

Promise me you will appreciate every moment because we are the lucky ones

Just be prepared for a long and often uncertain journey. The good stuff doesn't come easy.