Real data is messy. ...It's all very noisy out there. Very hard to spot the tune. Like a piano in the next room, it's playing your song, but unfortunately it's out of whack, some of the strings are missing, and the pianist is tone deaf and drunk- I mean, the noise! Impossible!

The tragedy of journalism is that these are people doing their best work.

Underneath runs the main current of preoccupation, which is keeping one's nose clean at all times. This means that when things go wrong you have to pass the blame along the line, like pass-the-parcel, till the music stops.

Audiences know what to expect, and that is all that they are prepared to believe in.

We're actors. We're the opposite of people.

Atheism is a crutch for those who cannot bear the reality of God.

Personally I am in favour of education but a university is not the place for it.