She had lost all our memories for ever, and it was as though by dying she had robbed me of part of myself. I was losing my individuality. It was the first stage of my own death, the memories dropping off like gangrened limbs.

We mustn't complain too much of being comedians - it's an honorable profession. If only we could be good ones the world might gain at least a sense of style. We have failed - that's all. We are bad comedians, we aren't bad men.

If two people loved, they slept together; it was a mathematical formula, tested and proved by human experience.

For an artist to think in terms of success is like a priest trying to think in terms of success.

Grief and disappointment are like hate: they make men ugly with self-pity and bitterness. And how selfish they make us too.

It is the storytellers task to elicit sympathy and a measure of understanding for those who lie outside the boundaries of State approval.

I had never known her before and I had never loved her so much. The more we know the more we love, I thought.