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

I think books are like people, in the sense that they'll turn up in your life when you most need them. I firmly believe there are books whose greatness actually enables you to live, to do something. And sometimes, human beings need story and narrative more than they need nourishment and food.

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

The trick is to age honestly and gracefully and make it look great, so that everyone looks forward to it.

I think we're creating a situation that's incredibly dangerous. There's a lot of chat at the moment about the war on terror and whilst there are many causes for acts of terrorism, what kind of society are you creating if you allow civil society in Africa to die and create millions upon millions of orphans? Where are they going to go? What kind of cults, what kind of militias, what's going to happen? The accession of violence in those countries, the possibility of that, to me is very terrifying.

I`ve realized that in all the great stories, even if there`s a happily-ever-after ending, there`s something sad.

Difficult for actors to extemporise in nineteenth-century English. Except for Robert Hardy and Elizabeth Spriggs, who speak that way anyway.