“I think of my life as a series of moments and I've found that the great moments often don't have too much to them. They're not huge, complicated events; they're just magical wee moments when somebody says 'I love you' or 'You're a really good at what you do' or simply 'You're a good person'.”

“We were watching this procession. It was fucking terrible and the crucifix was about 20 feet high coming around the corner. And my wee grandson says, 'who's that?' I say, 'that's Jesus'. He says, 'BABY JESUS?!' I say, 'yeah, that's him'. He says, 'SOMEBODY KILLED BABY JESUS!' It was the most sincere religious cry. If Christians did that, I would believe them. 'WHAT? THE BASTARDS KILLED JESUS!”

“I don't believe in angels and I have trouble with the whole God thing. I don't want to say I don't believe in God but I don't think I do. But I believe in people who do.”

“When people say "it's always the last place you look". Of course it is. Why would you keep looking after you've found it?”

“All anyone really needs to know about barbed wire is that it can tear the arse out of your trousers, give a cow a good fright, entangle a Yorkshire terrier for life, and is nasty stuff made by greedy men.”

“So I'm on a little one-man crusade to bring the obituary closer to the front of the paper. Let's sing a bit louder about the unsung. Rather than spending all our time watching stupid people doing stupid things and being filmed by other stupid people on reality TV shows, why don't we spend a few minutes each day reading about good people doing good things? I'm not being a hippy. It's just that we've got to improve ourselves as a species or we are absolutely doomed.”

“I think my securities far outweigh my insecurities. I am not nearly as afraid of myself and my imagination as I used to be.”