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

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 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.

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 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.

Circumstances are the seeds of literature.

With ravenous passion and reckless ambition he forged his thoughts into words, obsessed with the notion that dying would not be the last thing he would do.

There are two kinds of idiots - those who don't take action because they have received a threat, and those who think they are taking action because they have issued a threat.

Fairy-tales exist and the best proof for this is our own childhood! Yes, childhood is a real fairy tale!

I am an expert witness because I say I am.

In the morning, when you are sluggish about getting up, let this thought be present: 'I am rising to a man's work.'

We need a new cosmology. New gods. New sacraments. Another drink.

It's not really about confidence. It's just something that isn't really in the vocabulary of what goes on at work. The writers write and the actors act.

Play is the taproot from which original art springs. It is the raw stuff that the artist channels with all his learning and technique.