Lectures broke into one's day and were clearly a terrible waste of time, necessary no doubt if you were reading law or medicine or some other vocational subject, but in the case of English, the natural thing to do was talk a lot, listen to music, drink coffee and wine, read books, and go to plays, perhaps be in plays.

there is no reason why anyone should understand how it works… and of course no reason why anyone should care … unless you are curious, in which case I love you, for curiosity about the world and all its corners is a beautiful thing.

All the big words -virtue, justice, truth, ...- are dwarfed by the greatness of kindness

I was at a dinner party many years ago,sitting along from Tom Stoppard, who in those days smoked not just between courses,but between mouthfuls. An American woman watched in disbelief. "And you so intelligent!" "Excuse me?" said tom "Knowing those things are going to kill you" she said "and still you do it." "How differently I might behave" Tom said, "if immortality were an option

You'll often hear the phrase "science doesn't know everything." Well, of course it doesn't know everything. But just because science doesn't know everything doesn't mean that it knows nothing.

We gave you a perfectly good language and you f***ed up.

I do like being surprised by directors and producers and being offered parts I would never have considered, including parts that aren't necessarily obvious but which would test me.