I've come off heroin twice, and the worst part is laying in bed kicking and not being able to keep still. The physical withdrawal doesn't last that long, but then it's just all psychological. I think it's worse than cigarettes.

My mate Karl once told me he’d been looking after this five-year-old boy who – not knowing enough to have an ironic inflection to his words – said, ‘I want something.’ He didn’t know what it was. Not ‘I want sweets’, or ‘a can of Coke’, or ‘to watch the Tweenies’, or whatever it is they’re into now (I like Bagpuss), but ‘I want something.’ All of us, I think, have that feeling. And what heroin does when you first start taking it is tell you what that something is.

If you have no brothers and sisters it defines you for life; even when you're thirty you refer to yourself as an only child.

Sometimes when we're incensed by the rancid tide of injustice, the impulse is to attack. We must avoid this. We have learned that violence as a means is always unsuccessful.

What I liked about it is in the world of children, there are very, very different rules and a kind of naivete and innocence and sweetness that's been beautifully captured, I think, by this film as you can even see gesturing toward the film's poster on display nearby from this gorgeous artwork.

Don't listen to me. I'm a maniac, but the voice in your head, ask it "Is it right to kill 200 million animals simply for fun?". What did it say? Right. There you go.

I thought I was promiscuous, but it turns out I was just thorough.