But an Adrian also knew that an Adrian's lies were real: they were lived and felt and acted out as thoroughly as another man's truths - if other men had truths - and he believed it possible that this last lie might see him through to the grave.

I like to think of myself at home in the armchair, writing, smoking and occasionally wandering down the shop.

At John Schlesinger's funeral at a synagogue in St John's Wood some years ago the person I stood next to said to me encouragingly, 'Come on, Stephen - you're not singing. Have a go!' 'Believe me, Paul, you don't want me to,' I said. Besides, I was having a much better time listening to him. 'No. Go on!' So I joined in the chorus. 'You're right,' Paul McCartney conceded. 'You can't sing.

We are not nouns, we are verbs. I am not a thing - an actor, a writer - I am a person who does things - I write, I act - and I never know what I'm going to do next. I think you can be imprisoned if you think of yourself as a noun.

It is a cliche that most cliches are true, but then like most cliches, that cliche is untrue.

The only reason people do not know much is because they do not care to know. They are incurious. Incuriousity is the oddest and most foolish failing there is.

When you've seen a nude infant doing a backward somersault you know why clothing exists.