Success means your thoughts are worthy of everyones consideration.

We live a life that is often spent in crowds - parties, festivals and first nights - so it's nice to avoid them.

What is a week-end? Maggie Smith in Downton Abbey.

When you are desperate to get someone who isn't all that interested in you, you lay siege as hard as you can.

I'm seen as a chronicler of the class system, which I don't think is unfair.

Sometimes it is quite surprising, the emotional intensity of it. I was in NY one day, in Barnes and Noble, and I could see this woman following me around and after a bit I stopped and said 'Hello' and she just looked at me and said: “PLEASE LET EDITH BE HAPPY!”

The moment I was introduced to my wife, Emma, at a party I thought, here she is - and 20 minutes later I told her she ought to marry me. She thought I was as mad as a rat. She wouldn't even give me her telephone number - and she wrote in her diary: "A funny little man asked me to marry him."