I refuse to spend my life worrying about what I eat. There is no pleasure worth foregoing just for an extra three years in the geriatric ward.

When... I told my father I wanted to be a writer, he had asked me to consider my unfortunate wife, who would have me about the house all day 'wearing a dressing gown, brewing tea and stumped for words'.

What obsesses a writer starting out on a lifetime's work is the panic-stricken search for a voice of his own.

Dying is a matter of slapstick and pratfalls. The ageing process is not gradual or gentle. It rushes up, pushes you over and runs off laughing. No one should grow old who isn't ready to appear ridiculous.

The freedom to make a fortune on the stock exchange has been made to sound more alluring than freedom of speech.

Rumpole, you must move with the times." "If I don't like the way the times are moving, I shall refuse to accompany them.

Marriage is like pleading guilty to an indefinite sentence. Without parole.