That vision of a common culture is now simply a remote wistfulness.

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

The more my work improves or broadens or widens, the more surely I tame myself.

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.

Just letting it out is one of the definitions of bad art.

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

I think childhood is to everyone a lost land.