I tried being a mechanic and I tried catering, but I realized I had even less aptitude for semi-skilled labour than for academic work.

People in London think of London as the center of the world, whereas New Yorkers think the world ends three miles outside of Manhattan.

The moment I'm perceived to be even a tiny bit successful, my career will go down the pan.

I think I've been wishing for celebrity for so long that I've got used to being someone who's petitioning the establishment for acceptance... my whole schtick, my whole identity, is so wrapped up in being a petitioner that I don't really know how to react now that petition has been granted.

My life's ambition is to play a James Bond villain. I have the cat and the eye-patch, so I'm just waiting for the call. For some reason, though, the phone hasn't rung.

In Britain, by contrast, we still think that class plays a part in determining a person's life chances, so we're less inclined to celebrate success and less inclined to condemn failure. The upshot is that it's much easier to be a failure in Britain than it is in America.

There's no reason why you can't deliver a grammar-school curriculum to an all-ability intake.