And I suddenly think, as I look across the table at him, that these are the days as they will be. This is the future as we see it. The swerve and the static. The confidence and the doubt.

I'm only telling you on the truth," he said. "If you can't stand the truth, don't ask for it.

I am of the opinion, and even more so the older I get, that it is more difficult to have hope than it is to despair. And I mean this in the sense that in order to have hope you must acknowledge the despair and then you have to get beyond it. Taken from a radio interview given on BBC Radio 4's Open Book

People are good or half good or a quarter good, and it changes all the time- but even on the best day nobody's perfect.

Things in life have no real beginning, though our stories about them always do.

They told me Corrigan smashed all the bones in his chest when he hit the steering wheel. I thought, Well at least in heaven his Spanish chick'll be able to reach in and grab his heart.

I think the Northern Ireland accent is one of the most beautiful in the world.