My childhood was a happy one, spent in a tall house in South Kensington and later in East Sussex, but my early and mid teens were less successful.

Sometimes the weekend gets hijacked by work, but as my mother would say, this is the right problem.

I have derived enormous confidence from being a husband and father.

If you are lucky, you have your moment. But it is never more than a moment. You have to enjoy it while it lasts.

Leave three Englishmen in a room and they will invent a rule that prevents a fourth joining them.

Vulgarity is no substitute for wit.

To me, all success is a delightful surprise, since one can absolutely never predict it.

What is a week-end? Maggie Smith in Downton Abbey.

Success means your thoughts are worthy of everyones consideration.

Most of us don't want to be outsiders.

If there's one thing I don't look for in a maid, it's discretion. Except with my own secrets, of course.

Life is too important to take seriously.

It was like leading people to the edge of a cliff, showing them the view, and then shoving them off.

There's such a thing as moderation even in telling the truth.

I was supposed to choose apractical profession, but this was simply unbearable to me.

I bring the staple of my culture.

Trees are the largest and most spiritually advanced plants on Earth. They are constantly in meditation. Subtle energy is their natural language.

If you just work on stuff that you like and you're passionate about, you don't have to have a master plan with how things will play out.

Flying. Whatever any other organism has been able to do man should surely be able to do also, though he may go a different way about it.

There is no hierarchy of elder knowledge in my social region of things. There are only people learning and sharing in a very complex environment.

I want my ashes either with some really good primo or as some fertilizer for plants.