I don't talk very well. With writing, you've time to get it right. Also I've found the more I talk the less I write, and if I didn't write no one would want me to talk anyway.

... Once I start a book I finish it. That was the way one was brought up. Books, bread and butter, mashed potato - one finishes what's on one's plate. That's always been my philosophy.

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.

It's subjunctive history. You know, the subjunctive? The mood used when something may or may not have happened. When it is imagined.

Mark my words, when a society has to resort to the lavatory for its humour, the writing is on the wall.

Had your forefathers, Wigglesworth, been as stupid as you are, the human race would never have succeeded in procreating itself.

No mention of God. They keep Him up their sleeves for as long as they can, vicars do. They know it puts people off.