Walking is my main method of relaxation. I don't go over my lines or try to solve the world's problems, I just enjoy the scenery and the wildlife.

With your own children, you love them immediately - and with grandchildren, it's exactly the same.

You can't converse with Alzheimer's sufferers in the way you do with others; the dialogue tends to go round in circles.

I'm very good at being out of work.

With all the lines I have to learn for TV scripts, I don't think I have any problems with forgetfulness - that's brain exercise enough for me.

My mum Mary was always a bright, confident and fiercely independent lady.

With something like cancer, there is a feeling that you can fight it in some way or control your response to it, but with dementia there is the fear of losing control of your mind and your life.

People think I'm thick because of the characters I play. I think I'm brighter than the characters. Well, I hope I am.

I've been going to Bamburgh for holidays since I was a child.

My family have been around Northumberland for five generations.

The more telly you do, the more it feels like a factory.

For where belief dwells, the spider may not stir, neither by day nor by night.

My duty is to pray. I know God hears my prayers.

Talent is being unabashedly and unapologetically fearless in the work that you do. The only difference between having talent and not having talent is fear.

Every stage of life must be well-lived.There are sacred moments to treasure in each stage.

Truth is for the gods; from our human point of view, it is an ideal, towards which we can approximate, but which we cannot hope to reach.

I do really crazy things all the time, but I can't think of anything offhand

I love watching Jeff Bridges act. He's brilliant.

There's such a self-conscious balance that goes into television. Also, these are not people that think things through.

I've always considered myself a writer.

I love stories and I don't like to repeat myself. And I look for new stuff, and as they say it gets harder.