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.

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.

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

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

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

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 don't envy young Brits crossing the Atlantic to make their fortunes today.