I've got quite a big fan base, and people like to see you do the same thing - that's why you get offered the same roles.
You can never rely on musicians. I quit high school at one point to make a go of it with this band and we kept breaking up. So I went back to school.
Evolving into a middle-aged person is quite interesting if we can understand what it means. I would like to think it meant being a bit sure of what I want.
When you come up a bit short on excellence, you still win. When you strive for perfect, you’re just never quite good enough.
I get asked quite often if I'm an anarchist. If they want to put a label on me, that's fine. What is most important to me is to live in a world that is not being murdered.
I think I'm quite a lazy person, actually. If I'm not careful, I could just stay in bed all day.
I used to get quite upset that I'd make friends with a guy or a girl and then within the space of three years we'd move and go and live somewhere else, and you'd have to say goodbye to that person.
It's something that has informed quite a lot of my comedy - that idea of someone who is always trying to get in there with the right crowd, always trying to be a certain type of person and never managing it.
My character, Rick Spleen, is a what-if version of me, really, where nothing did quite turn out right and everything else is still around the corner.
I never plan a structure. I like surprises. I'm quite disciplined and sit at my desk every day and just write.
A word (...) is never the destination, merely a signpost in its general direction; and whatever (...) body that destination finally acquires owes quite as much to the reader as to the writer.
You know, there's nothing more interesting than seeing a bunch of racists become confused and angry at a speech they're not quite certain what he's saying.
I'd like to think I'm not quite so pretentious as to think my characters go off and live their lives once I've written the final page and switched the computer off.
I read somewhere that 77 per cent of all the mentally ill live in poverty. Actually, I'm more intrigued by the 23 per cent who are apparently doing quite well for themselves.
Words cannot express quite a lot of feelings, whereas a noise or tone or drone or sound, an accordion falling down a staircase, can somehow capture an emotion much better.
I don't feel proprietary, but I do feel there is a human identity to the borough of Hackney that's quite peculiar. It was always bloody-minded and difficult; it always stood up to central government.
As a financial historian, I was quite isolated in Oxford - British historians are supposed to write about kings - so the quality of intellectual life in my field is much higher at Harvard. The students work harder there.
Ever since the Beatles, the concept of lovable mop tops, it's a bit of a fantasy, but it's a lovely idea that people make wonderful music and live a wonderful life being friends together. Sadly, life isn't quite like that.
Everyone chases a bit of what they say life is about: money, desire... But when you stop chasing, you realise life is a rhythm and it's very peaceful, very quiet. You see, it's quite a miracle.
I'd love to see a good script of one of my books, in these years of animations and comic book sequels, and had so many written over the years, but none quite clicked.
Hamas, the opponents of Arafat, the opponents of peace, urged a boycott of the election, and yet there was an 85 percent turnout where Hamas is supposed to be strong. Isn't that really quite incredible?
