It is easy to answer the ultimate questions - it saves you bothering with the immediate ones.

Laughter's the nearest we ever get, or should get, to sainthood. It's the state of grace that saves most of us from contempt.

That voice that cries out doesn't have to be a weakling's does it?

Oh heavens, how I long for a little ordinary human enthusiasm. Just enthusiasm - that's all. I want to hear a warm, thrilling voice cry out Hallelujah! Hallelujah! I'm alive!

In London, love and scandal are considered the best sweeteners of tea.

Here we are, we're alone in the universe, there's no God, it just seems that it all began by something as simple as sunlight striking on a piece of rock. And here we are. We've only got ourselves. Somehow, we've just got to make a go of it. We've only ourselves.

There will be a quick rash of hairy American filth, but it shouldn't threaten the existence of decent, serious British filth.