I've never had any illusions about being a lead actor in films, because lead actors have to be of a certain kind.

In a dung heap, even a plastic bead can gleam like a sapphire.

One of the nice things about looking at a bear is that you know it spends 100 per cent of every minute of every day being a bear. It doesn't strive to become a better bear. It doesn't go to sleep thinking, "I wasn't really a very good bear today". They are just 100 per cent bear, whereas human beings feel we're not 100 per cent human, that we're always letting ourselves down. We're constantly striving towards something, to some fulfilment

Estate agents: like them or loathe them, you'd be mad not to loathe them.

I have written it before and am not ashamed to write it again. Without Wodehouse I am not sure that I would be a tenth of what I am today -- whatever that may be. In my teenage years, his writings awoke me to the possibilities of language. His rhythms, tropes, tricks and mannerisms are deep within me. But more than that, he taught me something about good nature. It is enough to be benign, to be gentle, to be funny, to be kind.

I was born Mary Patterson, but then I married and naturally took my husband's name, so now I'm Neil Patterson.

The Gay News critic wrote that I 'carried the lilt of the Irish without the brogue'.