I mean, language fascinates me anyway, and different words have different energies and you can change the whole drive of a sentence.

I think there's some connection between absolute discipline and absolute freedom.

I love perfumes. Every morning when my girlfriend and I come down to the courtyard in our block of flats we're assailed by the most delicious scent - jasmine round a doorway. It almost makes me swoon.

If only life could be a little more tender and art a little more robust.

Do you know that moment when you paint a landscape as a child and, when you're maybe under seven or something, the sky is just a blue stripe across the top of the paper? And then there's that somewhat disappointing moment when the teacher tells you that the sky actually comes down in amongst all the branches. And it's like life changes at that moment and becomes much more complicated and a little bit more boring, as it's rather tedious to fill in the branches.

I think there should be laughs in everything. Sometimes, it's a slammed door, a pie in the face or just a recognition of our frailties.

You know, London is so sprawling, and you can sometimes forget that anybody else is on a stage anywhere else.