It is often spur-of-the-moment decisions, sometimes made by others, that can change our whole lives.

Some people standby you in your darkest hour while others walk away; only a select few march towards you and become even closer friends.

I have discovered with advancing years that few things are entirely black or white, but more often different shades of grey.

I feel I have had a very interesting life, but I am rather hoping there is still more to come. I still haven't captained the England cricket team, or sung at Carnegie Hall!

If you make a deal with a fool, don't be surprised when they act foolishly.

Time spent on preparation is seldom wasted.

Making a million legally has always been difficult. Making a million illegally has always been a little easier. Keeping a million when you have made it is perhaps the most difficult of all.

What I have found is that real friends stand by you.

While there may not be a book in every one of us, there is so often a damned good short story.

we all suffer in our different ways from being prisoners of birth.

I put £150,000 into the stage production of Grease and have got back £1.5 million so far. It has been a fantastic success.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Never trust anyone who tells you how people come to trust him.

Songs don't have to be about going out on Saturday night and having a good rink-up and driving home and crashing cars. A lot of what I've done is about alienation... about where you fit in society.

Do the scary thing first, and get scared later.

In short, is not liberty the freedom of every person to make full use of his faculties, so long as he does not harm other persons while doing so?

Whether I'm writing about plumbers or psychics or psychic plumbers, I want to find a creative space that imprisons me usefully, so I can deviate with purpose.

A child identifies his parents with God, whether or not the adults want that role. Most children 'see' God the way they perceive their earthly fathers.

Terms don't define our lives; our lives define our terms.

Do not always live in your world; visit the worlds of others too!

I am a private person, but I will reveal this about myself: if you start massaging my shoulders, don't expect me to tell you to stop.

But facts are facts and flinch not.