“My life is just a series of embarrassing incidents strung together by telling people about those embarrassing incidents.”

“My dad's philosophy was (and I think still is) that life is a malevolent force, which seeks to destroy you, and you have to struggle with it. Only those who are hard enough will succeed. Most people get crushed, but if you fight, in the end life will go, "Fucking hell. This one's serious. Let him through.”

“Be led by your talent, not by your self-loathing; those other things you just have to manage.”

“People don't realize that the future is just now, but later.”

“Some people were just getting on with their lives, chatting, being young. It simply wouldn't do.”

“I know that's the sort of thing people say and I really hate it when people say the sort of things people say. I always think, 'You don't mean that, you just think it sounds good.”

“What I've learnt - to my cost - on several occasions in my life, is that people will put up with all manner of bad behaviour so long as you're giving them what they want. They'll laugh and get into it and enjoy the anecdotes and the craziness and the mayhem as long as you're going your job well, but the minute you're not, you're fucked. They'll wipe their hands of you without a second glance.”