There's only one thing more boring than listening to other people's dreams, and that's listening to their problems.

I am from the working class. I am now what I was then. No amount of balsamic vinegar and Prada handbags could make me forget what it was like to be poor.

I am the world's worst diabetic.

Now I know I am an intellectual. I saw Malcolm Muggeridge on the television last night, and I understood nearly every word. It all adds up. A bad home, poor diet, not liking punk. I think I will join the library and see what happens.

I think it's essential for comic writers to have a hate figure, a despot, a regime to react against, and I think Thatcher was perfect for me, I loathed everything she stood for.

I never imagined when I began writing in the early 1960s I'd become professional and my life would be transformed.

I'm spectacularly disorganised. I wrote my latest book in seven different notebooks scattered throughout my house.