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

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

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.

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 can't think of anyone I admire who isn't fuelled by self-doubt. It's an essential ingredient. It's the grit in the oyster.

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.

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