A writer doesn't really have much of a function on a movie set.

I was delighted to not go to university. I couldn't wait to be out of education.

The House of Lords, an illusion to which I have never been able to subscribe - responsibility without power, the prerogative of the eunuch throughout the ages.

I smoke too much whether it's going well or badly. After all these years, I definitely associate having a pen in my hand with having an ashtray just out of eye line.

The fact is, I loved being English. I was very happy to be turned into an English schoolboy.

The whole notion of journalism being an institution whose fundamental purpose is to educate and inform and even, one might say, elevate, has altered under commercial pressure, perhaps, into a different kind of purpose, which is to divert and distract and entertain.

Words, words. They're all we have to go on.