To begin with, it's true, she read with trepidation and some unease. The sheer endlessness of books outfaced her and she had no idea how to go on; there was no system to her reading, with one book leading to another, and often she had two or three on the go at the same time.

I think the writer's quite low down in the hierarchy really. But the fact that they took the piss out of Nicholas [Hynter] who, besides being the director, is also director of the National Theatre is, I'd have thought, slightly more risky.

Definition of a classic: a book everyone is assumed to have read and often thinks they have.

The longer I practise medicine, the more convinced I am there are only two types of cases: those that involve taking the trousers off and those that don't.

Nature played a cruel trick on her by giving her a waxed mustache.

God doesn't do notes, either. Did Jesus Christ say, "Can I be excused the Crucifixion?" No!

I lack what the English call character, by which they mean the power to refrain.