What is the single most important thing for a company? Is it the building? Is it the stock? Is it the turnover? It’s the people, investment in people. My proudest moment here wasn’t when I increased profits by 17%, or cut expenditure without losing a single member of staff. No. It was a young Greek guy, first job in the country, hardly spoke a word of English, but he came to me and he went ‘Mr. Brent, will you be the Godfather to my child?’. Didn’t happen in the end. We had to let him go, he was rubbish. He was rubbish!

I know how much embarrassment hurts, and I love it as a theme because you can keep digging a hole. It's just an endless well, embarrassment.

Being an atheist makes someone a clearer thinking, fairer person. They [atheists] are not doing things to be rewarded in heaven; they're doing things because they're right, because they live by a moral code.

I'm not a person that's easily embarrassed, but I'm embarrassed for other people.

If you pay attention to good critics, you have to listen to the bad. So you have to ignore them all really. You can't just cherry pick the glowing ones.

You do your own thing and you see if you survive.

It breaks your heart when you throw something away, but it's what left that counts. It's like worrying about the bits of rock you have knocked off in order to make a beautiful statue. You've wasted half the rock, yeah, but it's the Venus di Milo!