‎What's the weather like? ... It's fierce mild!

There's always a host of voices you're inspired by. I love Don DeLillo, and I love Isaac Bashevis Singer, and I love Beckett, and I love Pinter. He's one of the funniest voices in English literature since Dickens.

I would never really analyse what I do. I leave that to other people - I'm not a critic. I just want to get on with whatever I have in hand, you know? Just try to make the best job of the available material.

I feel very very old. My hair hurts. I have buttocks all over my body and I can't even smoke properly any more. I don't have lungs, I just have two poppadoms in here.

The American political machinery is awesome to behold in its scale and expense and waste and madness. It's the greatest circus on Earth I suppose.

There are two types of wine essentially, and everybody knows this. There's the one where you drink it and go, "Mmmm, well that's ok, can we get 8 of those please, give us 8 of those." There's the other one, you know, where you go "Ga... bt... Jesus, WHAT is that?" Very, very occasionally I concede you will hit a subtle one. You know, where you go "Ga... ba... ah, actually that's not that bad, that is. It's quite nice."

You've a very important, early decision to make in your life: are you going to be alone, or are you going to be with somebody else? Are you going to be sane, or not lonely? A couple is a strange thing; it's an organism that's half as intelligent as the most intelligent member. And you both know who it is!