Yes, OK, farty is a silly word. I wish I'd never used it. I'm 34. Perhaps it was a word for my 20s.

I think trying to be cool is the worst possible ambition - and I have never suffered from it.

I think it is very difficult to legislate for morality.

Books are the key. A book cannot be accessed from afar. You have to hold it, you have to read it.

People who get through life dependent on other people's possessions are always the first to lecture you on how little possessions count.

The worst thing about being a great power is when you're not one any more. It takes centuries to get over it.

The earth only has so much bounty to offer and inventing ever larger and more notional prices for that bounty does not change its real value.