A traditional fixture at Wimbledon is the way the BBC TV commentary box fills up with British players eliminated in the early rounds.

I think the great trick of doing my sort of thing is to learn to use your downtime, and of course in the media and especially in television, there's a heck of a lot of time of waiting around. And I think the trick is to use that.

Fiction is life with the dull bits left out.

It's a big thing to call yourself a poet. All I can say is that I have always written poems. I don't think I'm interested in any discussion about whether I'm a good poet, a bad poet or a great poet. But I am sure, I want to write great poems. I think every poet should want that.

I won't have to miss smoking any more. Nobody smokes where I'm going: It's like a row of restaurants in California.

John McEnroe has hair like badly turned broccoli.

Sick of being a prisoner of my childhood, I want to put it behind me.