Some of the words and symbols and images from childhood will continually be part and parcel of my personality.

You have to assert something about yourself in order to be yourself.

Politics is still crucially important. Our choices are vital, and we've got to make them and not just say, 'Oh they're all the same.' They are all the same in certain ways, alas - a political animal is such an animal.

The loss of Eden is personally experienced by every one of us as we leave the wonder and magic and also the pains and terrors of childhood.

Television's Mr. Filth: that's me.

The strangest thing that human speech and human writing can do is create a metaphor. That is an amazing leap, is it not?

Children can write poetry and then, unless they're poets, they stop when reach puberty.