As a real person, he wouldn't last a minute, would he? But drama is about imperfection. And we've moved away from the aspirational hero. We got tired of it, it was dull. If I was House's friend, I would hate it. How he so resolutely refuses to be happy or take the kind-hearted road. But we don't always like morally good people, do we?

This was the tricky bit. The really tricky bit, trickiness cubed.

Humility was a cult in my family. I only got it out of my father by accident when he was very old that he had won an Olympic gold medal.

I was shown into a room. A red room. Red wallpaper, red curtains, red carpet. They said it was a sitting-room, but I don’t know why they’d decided to confine its purpose just to sitting. Obviously, sitting was one of the things you could do in a room this size; but you could also stage operas, hold cycling races, and have an absolutely cracking game of frisbee, all at the same time, without having to move any of the furniture. It could rain in a room this big.

Love is a word. A sound. Its association with a particular feeling is arbitrary, unmeasurable, and ultimately meaningless

One of the principal goals in my life has been to avoid embarrassing my children by doing the job I do. I hope I've managed to do that, and I hope that, with the job I'm in now, they are, if not proud, at least unembarrassed by it. I must say, my three are most agreeable children, who do nothing but delight me.

It's a holy city for music.