I had a weimaraner for 11 years called China, and he was a great dog, a bit mad. They're massive, weimaraners; they've got big floppy ears. They look like a pointer, but they're liver-coloured.

When I was a kid doing television, they'd stick a leather jacket on me, and I would be the thug.

I used to go into bars on my days off, and I decided that wasn't too good for me.

I found that golf saved me from going to the pub every day so instead I play golf with other unemployed actors. I'm a member of the Stage Golfing Society and I play golf with all sorts of people.

I grew up near King's Cross station in London, living in an apartment block where my dad was a caretaker.

It's great to do small plays in the theatre and then go off with Blur and play in front of thousands of people.

Doing 'EastEnders' wasn't exactly suffering, but my soul's not in quick-fix TV. Theatre doesn't pay like TV work pays, though. We all have to live, don't we?

I get on with actors, and when I'm doing a theatre show, it's great being with them all the time. But we're all alike, and it's much nicer being with people who are different.

It's never gone so far as me wishing I'd never done 'Quadrophenia,' but there was a time when I wouldn't talk about it because I wanted people to be interested in me for other things as well.

I'm famous for being a silky midfielder.

I think that's what keeps you grounded - having your own life that's not directed by your job.

The note of the perfect personality is not rebellion, but peace.

Writers matter in a society to the extent that we can help that society hear its unvoiced longing, encounter its erased and disregarded selves, break with complacency, numbness, despair.

Only the children know what they are looking for.

But a stranger in a strange land, he is no one. Men know him not, and to know not is to care not for.

I have confidence that God is with us in all things, both tender and tough

It's funny how people who we fight with the most at the end of day are the ones that really got your back.

Plunge into the truth, find out who the Teacher is, Believe in the Great Sound!

I don't see any rock stars playing an electric guitar from some new maker like you see in the acoustic guitar world.

Over the years I have found one of my best strengths is my ability to recognise talent and trust them.

Everyone has the heartbreak that shapes them in a way that they could never go back to the innocence that they had before.