It was behaviour that I thought not far from racism, sexism or any other kind of prejudice or snobbery. 'Because you are not cute, I do not want to know you' was, to me, hardly different from suggesting 'because you are gay, I dislike you

When you take a lot of cocaine powder you tend to take a lot of alcohol with it as well, so for many years really I never went out without at least four or five grams of cocaine powder.

Norwich is a fine city. None finer. If there is another city in the United Kingdom with a school of painters named after it, a matchless modern art gallery, a university with a reputation for literary excellence which can boast Booker Prize-winning alumni, one of the grandest Romanesque cathedrals in the world, and an extraordinary new state-of-the-art library then I have yet to hear of it.

The part of [Oscar] Wilde was exceptionally important to me; the man, his achievements, his wisdom, but his downfall, his disgrace and the tragic and bitter end to it have always fascinated, appalled and attracted me since childhood. It was he who first in some measure vindicated my sexuality.

Mankind can live free in a society hemmed in by laws, but we have yet to find a historical example of mankind living free in lawless anarchy.

You don't get depressed because bad things happen to you. That's getting pissed off and annoyed. That's reasonable. Someone hits you in the face you go ow, you know that's... but depression is something that happens like weather to you inside you.

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