Laughter is a celebration of our failings. That's what clowns are for. And that's what I am.

There is that thing about not working with animals and children - I don't think that's true. Although you should never work with donkeys.

You can't imagine what satisfaction can be gotten from throwing a pie into someone's face.

Children are the most wonderful audiences. What's struck me most is that that they watch it so silently, until the end when they shriek and shout and clap.

We must remember that all these things, the nuances, the anomalies, the subtleties, which we assume only accessorize our days are in fact here for a much larger and nobler cause. They are here to save our lives.

I think my first bout of that was when I was doing me and My Girl, funnily enough. I really didn't change my clothes or answer the phone, but went into the theatre every night and was cheerful and sang the Lambeth Walk. She said: “The only thing I could do was write. I used to crawl from the bedroom to the computer and just sit and write, and then I was alright, because I was not present. “Sense and Sensibility really saved me from going under, I think, in a very nasty way.

The insanity of consumption bothers me. Talk about the opiate of the masses. It ain't religion anymore. It's stuff.