Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I'm a class mongrel.
I'm addicted to 'Game Of Thrones.'
I don't feel like I'm slowing down.
Autobiographical fiction is very tricky.
People in jobs that they hate must be worn out.
Control, like curiosity, can be an exterminator.
I decided years ago that I am just unfashionable.
I love writing, and I love making arts programmes.
Sometimes, you're just moved by people's journeys.
Writing novels is a way of living alternative lives.
More people go to Tate Modern than watch the Arsenal.
I'm a Labour party supporter, but I'm also a democrat.
A lot of the novels I admire are 'admirably provincial.'
There's a lot of hours in the week if you use them properly.
There is an army of the informed wanting to be more informed.
Too old at 72? Careful. Ageism is out. We'll have the law on you!
Love of place is one of the characteristics I enjoy most about novelists.
It is in our culture that we don't want to admit that our culture is good.
It was my idea for high culture and popular culture to be treated equally.
Compared to the big 19th-century novelists, I've got a slim volume of work.
I don't want closure, I don't know what that means or why you would want it.
More people now work in the arts than the steel, coal and car industries combined.
I enjoy writing. Would I rather be playing golf? No. Would I rather be fishing? No.
To hear the Treorchy Male Choir in full throat is one of the great joys of choral music.
Once, the arts were opera, ballet, classical music, and everything else deemed highbrow.
There are two big beasts in the arts: the BBC and Sky Arts - challenging, leading the way.
In 1997, the Labour government set out to strengthen funding for the arts - and achieved it.
I've been making arts programmes for almost 50 years, and every day, I can't believe my luck.
A structure is a bit like a story. People will go along with you - they see where you're going.
Few places on earth have been as affectionately alchemised into literature as the Lake District.
As the 20th century unspooled, a cultural warming melted down many frozen class characteristics.
History is too often the refuge of the tidy-minded, making neat patterns when the dust has settled.
In an arts programme, my job was to go where the talent was. And the talent was in popular culture.
Well, I don't think I'm good-looking... I know people who are good-looking, and I'm not good-looking.
In a sense, Bond ousted the cowboy as the screen hero, and Ken Adams replaced the horse with technology.
My memory seems to be holding on quite well. There is no reason why it shouldn't if you keep training it.
I don't believe in a personal God, no. And I don't believe in resurrection as it is in the New Testament.
The abolition of slavery was driven by the King James Bible. It gave slaves a common language and purpose.
If you look at the creative economy in this country, it's per capita way bigger than any other in the world.
To give religion two minutes a day, in its own space, isn't exactly selling general morality or atheism short.
There's nothing the British like better than a bloke who comes from nowhere, makes it, and then gets clobbered.
The arts stimulate imagination. They provoke thought. And then, having done that, all sorts of other things happen.
My life is not very different from what it was 20 years ago. In fact, my career hasn't changed much since I was 22.
I am 74 now. Looking back, I have a sense of not really being in control of my career. I just went where it took me.
Miliband failed us, his Labour supporters. And Labour will now, because of him, be in a disaster zone for a long time.
I'm not a fan of the working class being mocked, including by some of our famous writers - even those who came from it.
I'm going to try and make you take the Beatles and Eric Clapton as seriously as the Berlin Philharmonic and Simon Rattle.
I don't feel inferior in the slightest to anybody - or superior to anybody, let's get that clear. But I do feel different.
Connery made Bond real through his physicality. He did most of his own stunts and fights, and the audience knew it was him.
There is some brilliant pop music and some very poor classical music. And why shouldn't comedy be treated as seriously as drama?