The beauty of independence departure actions that rely on themselves.

Our task must be to free ourselves by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty.

Films for TV have to be much closer to the book mainly because the objective with a TV movie that translates literature is to get the audience after seeing this version to pick up the book and read it themselves. My attitude is that TV can never really be any form of art because it serves audience expectations.

I think it has something to do with being British. We don't take ourselves as seriously as some other countries do. I think a lot of people take themselves far too seriously I find that a very tedious attitude.

The attitude that nature is chaotic and that the artist puts order into it is a very absurd point of view I think. All that we can hope for is to put some order into ourselves.

Because most people are not sufficiently employed in themselves they run about loose hungering for employment and satisfy themselves in various supererogatory occupations. The easiest of these occupations which have all to do with making things already made is the making of people: it is called the art of friendship.

Great art speaks a language which every intelligent person can understand. The people who call themselves modernists today speak a different language.

Works of art often last forever or nearly so. But exhibitions themselves especially gallery exhibitions are like flowers they bloom and then they die then exist only as memories or pressed in magazines and books.

While a large segment of the art world has obsessed over a tiny number of stars and their prices an aesthetic shift has been occurring. It's not a movement - movements are more sure of themselves. It's a change of mood or expectation a desire for art to be more than showy effects big numbers and gamesmanship.

Great artists are people who find the way to be themselves in their art. Any sort of pretension induces mediocrity in art and life alike.

Only through art can we emerge from ourselves and know what another person sees.

Sometimes being a friend means mastering the art of timing. There is a time for silence. A time to let go and allow people to hurl themselves into their own destiny. And a time to prepare to pick up the pieces when it's all over.

Artists themselves are not confined but their output is.

Modern art is what happens when painters stop looking at girls and persuade themselves that they have a better idea.

Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.

I realised one day that men are emotional cripples. We can't express ourselves emotionally we can only do it with anger and humour. Emotional stability and expression comes from women.

On banks I make no apology for attacking spivs and gamblers who did more harm to the British economy than Bob Crow could achieve in his wildest Trotskyite fantasies while paying themselves outrageous bonuses underwritten by the taxpayer. There is much public anger about banks and it is well deserved.

The intoxication of anger like that of the grape shows us to others but hides us from ourselves.

The great thing about celebrity culture is that they can't seem to stop themselves from displaying their ridiculous behaviour. I feel it's my job as a serious investigative journalist to witness all kinds of behaviour and then report back to the audience through the prism of my own anger and bitterness.

Guilt is anger directed at ourselves - at what we did or did not do. Resentment is anger directed at others - at what they did or did not do.

Anger is like those ruins which smash themselves on what they fall.

In a controversy the instant we feel anger we have already ceased striving for the truth and have begun striving for ourselves.

You can be the best actor in the world but if you don't have that one lucky moment it kind of doesn't matter. There are a lot of amazing actors who will never get the chance to prove themselves because they won't have that one lucky moment.

Definitely they write themselves. It's an amazing experience. It's like the characters have come alive and are sitting on my shoulder talking to me telling me their tales.