I have written it before and am not ashamed to write it again. Without Wodehouse I am not sure that I would be a tenth of what I am today — whatever that may be....

I suppose this was the first time I had ever felt an urge not to be. Never an urge to die, far less an urge to put an end to myself – simply an urge...

I’m fat because I’m greedy, and if my mind is fat it’s because I’m curious.

Anger fed him and clothed him and he owed it much.

There is simply no limit to the tyrannical snobbery that otherwise decent people can descend into when it comes to music.

We are not nouns, we are verbs. I am not a thing – an actor, a writer – I am a person who does things – I write, I act – and I never know...

I used many times to touch my own chest and feel, under its asthmatic quiver, the engine of the heart and lungs and blood and feel amazed at what I sensed was the enormity of...

Those who rule the world get so little opportunity to run about and laugh and play in it.

Entirely in accordance with what education is supposed to be. Education is the sum of what students teach each other in between lectures and seminars. You sit in each other’s rooms and drink coffee –...

Look at the kind of people who most object to the childishness and cheapness of celebrity culture. Does one really want to side with such apoplectic and bombastic bores? I should know, I often catch...

Sex without smiling is as sickly and as base as vodka and tonic without ice.

There were people who believed their opportunities to live a fulfilled life were hampered by the number of Asians in England, by the existance of a royal family, by the volume of traffic that passed...

Stop feeling sorry for yourself and you will be happy.

Language is my whore, my mistress, my wife, my pen-friend, my check-out girl. Language is a complimentary moist lemon-scented cleansing square or handy freshen-up wipette. Language is the breath of God, the dew on a...

Wine can be a better teacher than ink, and banter is often better than books

I like to think of this little [newspaper] column as a brassière, or do I mean brasserie? Brazier, possibly. All three! A column that lifts, separates, supports, serves excellent cappuccino and crackles merrily with sweet-smelling...