Outgrew the media... The negativity felt like a disease.

Life is supposed to be fun. It's not a job or occupation. We're here only once and we should have a bit of a laugh.

Avoid people who say they know the answer. Keep the company of people who are trying to understand the question.

Without arts programmes there's only reality TV, and reality TV needs the arts to show it what reality is.

Well, the film's not only pricking the pomposity of the Church, it's pricking the pomposity, and sometimes you would think fraudulence, of the insurance companies. I had never read anything like this until I was doing the film, but Mark [Joffe, the director] and people showed me stuff where, like a flood, it mattered where the water came from. If you're flooded from above, you get the money; if you're flooded from below, you don't. What's that about?

The great thing about Glasgow is that if there's a nuclear attack it'll look exactly the same afterwards.

The more you know the less the better.