When I work with young people, I grab energy from them by the handsful.

It grieves us to produce work that is not perfect.

I don't go for this auto-cannibalism. Very damaging.

The common denominator of all my friends is that they're dead.

Many years ago I sent an old, beloved jacket to a cleaner, the Sycamore Cleaners. It was a leather jacket covered in Guinness and blood and marmalade, one of those jobs... and it came back with a little note pinned to it, and on the note it said, 'It distresses us to return work which is not perfect.' So that will do for me. That can go on my tombstone.

It is time for me to chuck in the sponge. To retire from films and stage. The heart for it has gone out of me: it won't come back.

My dear sir, it haunted me for the rest of my life.