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."

If you are lucky, you have your moment. But it is never more than a moment. You have to enjoy it while it lasts.

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

Vulgarity is no substitute for wit.

If you're in the movie or in television, your failures are very public, and so are your successes. You weigh them up against each other, really.

Every writer has to make an emotional journey from artist sitting in attic to being part of a business. The writer of a film is like Tinkerbell. You are only there because people believe in you. The moment they dont, because youre a pain the arse, youve lost.

Most of the soap operas always use the Christmas special to kill huge quantities of their characters. So they have trams coming off their rails, or cars slamming into each other or burning buildings. It's a general clean-out.