And why do we who say we oppose tyranny and demand freedom of speech allow people to go to prison and be vilified and magazines to be closed down on the spot for suggesting another version of history.

A state that suppresses all freedom of speech and which by imposing the most terrible punishments treats each and every attempt at criticism however morally justified and every suggestion for improvement as plotting to high treason is a state that breaks an unwritten law.

It has long been known for sure that the sight of tasty food makes a hungry man's mouth water also lack of appetite has always been regarded as an undesirable phenomenon from which one might conclude that appetite is essentially linked with the process of digestion.

Parents it seems have an almost Olympian persistence when it comes to suggesting more secure and lucrative lines of work for their children who have the notion that writing is an actual profession. I say this from experience.

A jellyfish is little more than a pulsating bell a tassel of trailing tentacles and a single digestive opening through which it both eats and excretes - as regrettable an example of economy of design as ever was.

I am bound to add that the excess in too little has ever proved in me more dangerous than the excess in too much the last may cause indigestion but the first causes death.

When fish experience something that would cause other animals physical pain they behave in ways suggestive of pain and the change in behaviour may last several hours.

A belief in God is vitally important not just in show business but stability in life. You know to recognize deity is the most important thing that you can do. I mean it comes to the Ten Commandments. They weren't ten suggestions. They were Ten Commandments.

Music is the best means we have of digesting time.

There was once a caustic comment from someone suggesting I was breeding a new race. Fans from different countries have married amazing things like that. I've been to some of the weddings. I went to one here the other day a pagan ceremony.