After you've read a novel, you only retain a vague memory of its contents. You remember the atmosphere, the odd image or phrase or vivid cameo.

Reading the play at home, however fulfilling, can never be the vivacious experience that Shakespeare intended.

The best way to prepare for a night out with a Shakespearean tragedy is to do a bit of reading up in the afternoon, eat a light supper - perhaps Welsh rarebit - and then arrive early to do some stretching exercises in the foyer before curtain-up.

Don Quixote's 'Delusions' is an excellent read - far better than my own forthcoming travel book, 'Walking Backwards Across Tuscany.'

If you want to write something of length, however modern and radical, you must live the life of an elderly gentleman of the 1950s.

It was Julie Burchill who decreed that, beyond a certain age, a man should not be seen in a leather jacket.

Ninety-eight per cent of laughter is nothing to do with jokes, which do not deserve to bear the weight of all the funny stuff in the world.