Life is rather like a tin of sardines - we're all of us looking for the key.

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

There's very little in the substance of [THE LADY IN THE VAN] which is not fact though some adjustments have had to be made. Over the years Miss Shepherd was visited by a succession of social workers so the character in the play is a composite figure. . . . A composite too are the neighbours, Pauline and Rufus, though I have made Rufus a publisher in remembrance of my neighbour, the late Colin Haycraft, the proprietor of Duckworth's.

Those who have known the famous are publicly debriefed of their memories, knowing as their own dusk falls that they will only be remembered for remembering someone else.

One recipe for happiness is to have to sense of entitlement.' To this she added a star and noted at the bottom of the page: 'This is not a lesson I have ever been in a position to learn.

Of course my standards are out of date! That's why they're called standards.

f they'd been working with Alec Guinness, for instance, they wouldn't have known they were born if they'd not towed the line!