One of the virtues of the NHS... it doesn't worry you about money at the moment when you're least capable of doing anything about it.

You can't be young always. The day will come when everything will fall apart.

I was wrong, however, to suppose that Sellers thought the world revolved around him. He thought the cosmos did too, and history, and the fates... Like every egomaniac, he behaved as if everybody else spent their day being as interested in him as he was.

First-rate science fiction was, and remains, more interesting than second-rate art.

In between the Queen and the First Lady, Nancy Reagan, sat Tony Richardson, looking very calm. Later on it emerged that this was because, having not been apprised of the placement until he was about to sit down, he had died of fright. To have expired was to be fortunate.

I'm certainly not a linguist. I learned what languages I could learn in order to read books and I can't really speak them. I couldn't have stayed out of jail in most of them.

If we want a book to do more than what it does, that's a condemnation. If we want it to do more of what it does, that's an endorsement.