Even if I screw up in my personal life, as long as I'm not destroying myself, I just think, "Okay, I screwed up." I'm not Mother Theresa.

In England, I've done a whole bunch of stuff where I just make a complete ass of myself. I've been doing it for 20 years, so I just gravitate toward it anyway. I'd rather do that than do the stuff where I'm supposed to be trying to look cool in some way. It's more interesting to me.

The trick is always to write in pairs because if at least two people find it funny, you've immediately halved the odds of it not being funny.

It is not true that sex degrades women... if it is any good.

I like comedy, but I like comedy as a device in drama. It's more interesting for me to use comedy to seduce people into thinking about something serious. If you want to hit a beat in a drama, you can distract people with a little comedy, and you can punch them in the gut with some emotion.

I happen to have a public profile. Ditto newspaper editors. It's a result of what I do, not an end.

That's what gives people hope - that you can still love someone from afar and you can still have those feelings across an ocean.