"It's very hard to imagine the phrase 'consumer society' used so cheerfully, and interpreted so enthusiastically, in England."

"Shame, like beauty, is often in the eye of the beholder."

"I've never been nostalgic, personally or politically - if the past was so great, how come it's history?"

"It may be a cliche, but it's true - the build-up to Christmas is so much more pleasurable than the actual day itself."

"You can't move so fast that you try to change the mores faster than people can accept it. That doesn't mean you do nothing, but it means that you do the things that need to be done according to priority."

"I come from the slums; I come from a hard background; I come from a poor family; and I was a soldier."

"I know, to banish anger altogether from one's breast is a difficult task. It cannot be achieved through pure personal effort. It can be done only by God's grace."

"Performers are so vulnerable. They're frightened of humiliation, sure their work will be crap. I try to make an environment where it's warm, where it's OK to fail - a kind of home, I suppose."