With the advent of Twitter and Facebook and other social networking sites, genuine privacy can only be found by renting a private villa for a holiday. Hotels are now out of the question for my wife and I.

There is no teaching to compare with example.

I love being on stage. I'm completely, totally relaxed. It's the only time in my life when I know where I am and what's coming next. The other Robert Powell is probably fairly melancholic. Let's just say happiness isn't my default position. There are dark parts. I'm very good at it. I frighten people sometimes.

It is a pity that the words "spiritual life" were ever invented, for they have caused so much confusion. For, in truth, there is only life-everyday life-which is simply what is at every moment.

I think monogamy is a little unnatural, if I'm totally honest. You change. Things alter. It's the exception rather than the rule and I think it's exceptional to cope with it and manage it. It's hard work.

I have found that a smile and a stick will carry you through all right, and in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred it is the smile that does the trick.

There's not a human being alive I won't talk to. There's a quite simple rule. If you like somebody more than you dislike them you can have a relationship. Once you accept you like 75 per cent but 25 per cent you find irritating for this or that reason, you just have to ignore that 25 per cent.