A lot has been said about politics; some of it complimentary, but most of it accurate

People can tell the truth much more freely when they're apparently lying.

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will make me go in a corner and cry by myself for hours.

We never have that thought! The whole object is to bite off more than you can chew. John [Du Prez] always says, Eric thinks of something completely insane and insists we go in that direction. It's the correct way to look at things and the correct place to start, I think.

So it became in my mind a nine-carol service; an oratorio and orchestral concert all in one, but with narration. That's something I've learned about, because it's the story that keeps you in there. I wrote a libretto and I gave it to John Du Prez. We normally don't work in this fashion but I said off you go, and he went off for about three months. He brought me back this demo which blew my mind.

I used to have a house in London, but couldn't face 20 more years of St John's Wood in the rain.

I got locked into a tradition [at Cambridge] of doing comedy.