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.

America thinks of itself as a meritocracy, so people have more respect for success and more contempt for failure.

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.

Oddly, I do have a problem with authority. I find it very difficult to knuckle down and follow rules. Which are the classic symptoms of someone who has a troubled relationship with their father. And yet, I never had a problem with my father.

I've never been to a shrink. But my parents were very psychologically literate - my father had undergone Freudian analysis - and we often talked about other people in psychological terms, so I picked up a lot of that.

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

I miss being fawned over by restaurateurs and chefs.