Global warming, the ongoing destruction of the planet, Third World debt, the uselessness of the railways, the takeover by the corporations, the scary George Bush person: all these things are important and should be animating me into outrage. Yet somehow they do not.

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

I like doing things I haven't learnt about yet. I've always been interested in art, and I love doing art.

I couldn't really see the point of having lunch unless it started at 1:00 and ended a week later in Monte Carlo.

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.

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

If you want to be happy for a short time, get drunk happy for a long time, fall in love; happy forever, take up gardening.