Paradoxically, to be truly idle, you also have to be efficient.

The terrible thing about the internet and Amazon is that they take the magic and happy chaos out of book shopping. The internet might give you what you want, but it won't give you what you need.

The art of living is the art of bringing dreams and reality together.

When you go for a walk, take seeds with you, poppies, rainbow chard, rocket. Plant them among the weeds in patches of wasteland. See what happens.

In a world where you are constantly asked to be 'committed,' it is liberating to give yourself the license to be a dilettante. Commit to nothing. Try everything.

There is nothing so perfect as pinball and a pint at 11 a.m.

My idea of childcare at festivals is to sit at a trestle table with an ale while the kids run around and make up their own games.

I count it as a certainty that in paradise, everyone naps.

When the going gets tough, the tough take a nap.

Pain will never leave us. Instead of putting energy into destroying pain, we need to put energy into creating pleasure.

Beauty, pleasure, freedom and plenty of sleep: these are the hallmarks of a successful idler's break. Travel should not be hard work.

As I get older I find that the friendships that are the most certain, ultimately, are the ones where you and the other person have made substantial amounts of money for one another.

It's no good trying to teach people who need to be taught.

I loved my kids. And I loved my house, and I loved a lot of things about my life in the 1950s. But there were a lot like me in that era, very overeducated housewives.

You have rather the look of another world. I marvelled where you had got that sort of face.

I became an actor because I couldn't not.

I want to get so famous that I don't have to wake up in the morning. It'll probably never happen.

At 26, I felt myself a victim rather than a victor in the realm of pictures.

If a language is corruptible, then a constitution written in that language is corruptible.

Shun no toil to make yourself remarkable by some talent or other.

Good is not enough. You've got to be great.