It's the shock of the world if you allow yourself to disconnect from the world and forget it's out there, how noisy it is, how busy it is, how invasive it is.

Well, I really want to encourage a kind of fantasy, a kind of magic. I love the term magic realism, whoever invented it – I do actually like it because it says certain things. It's about expanding how you see the world. I think we live in an age where we're just hammered, hammered to think this is what the world is. Television's saying, everything's saying 'That's the world.' And it's not the world. The world is a million possible things.

I'm more prone to anarchy than I am to control - even though I'm a film director.

Reality and fantasy, we need both of those to survive. If we don't have fantasy, dreams and all of those things, what's the point of carrying on? And you need to watch out for reality because buses come.

John Cleese was with a group called Cambridge Circus, who had come to New York, and we became friends. Years later that produced a certain team effort.

When it came to slaughtering sacred cows with such crude yet perfect musical precision, there was no one better than Frank. I wonder what songs he's teaching the angels right now? Good luck God! You've got your hands full this time.

I was an incredible Anglophile. I found people who shared the same sense of humor and attitude toward the world.