Change begins with understanding and understanding begins by identifying oneself with another person: in a word, empathy. The arts enable us to put ourselves in the minds, eyes, ears and hearts of other human beings.

I am interested in the gap between what people say and what they think - the undiscovered world of people's lives. Lives of quiet desperation.

Change begins with understanding and understanding begins by identifying oneself with another person: in a word, empathy. The arts enable us to put ourselves in the minds, eyes, ears and hearts of other human beings.

What we hold in our heads - our memory, our feelings, our thoughts, our sense of our own history - is the sum of our humanity.

We can alleviate physical pain, but mental pain - grief, despair, depression, dementia - is less accessible to treatment. It's connected to who we are - our personality, our character, our soul, if you like.

I've always argued, unsuccessfully, that there's no point in giving money to the arts unless you educate people in them.

I think the collision between the First and Third world is going to become more and more conspicuous. It's the big cliff that we've all got to climb.