The more telly you do, the more it feels like a factory.

With your own children, you love them immediately - and with grandchildren, it's exactly the same.

You can't converse with Alzheimer's sufferers in the way you do with others; the dialogue tends to go round in circles.

I'm very good at being out of work.

With all the lines I have to learn for TV scripts, I don't think I have any problems with forgetfulness - that's brain exercise enough for me.

My mum Mary was always a bright, confident and fiercely independent lady.

With something like cancer, there is a feeling that you can fight it in some way or control your response to it, but with dementia there is the fear of losing control of your mind and your life.

Walking is my main method of relaxation. I don't go over my lines or try to solve the world's problems, I just enjoy the scenery and the wildlife.

People think I'm thick because of the characters I play. I think I'm brighter than the characters. Well, I hope I am.

I've been going to Bamburgh for holidays since I was a child.

My family have been around Northumberland for five generations.

When I was a child I truly loved:Unthinking love as calm and deepAs the North Sea. But I have lived, And now I do not sleep.

Pick a sin we can both live with, is what I ask.

A writer only begins a book. A reader finishes it.

The greatest concubines in history knew that everything revealed with nothing concealed is a bore.

I've come to believe that seeking happiness is not a frivolous pursuit. It's honorable and necessary. And most people forget even to thing about it.

I didn't start publishing literary texts until I had left Iraq. At the Academy [of Cinematic Arts] I was busy with short films.

I would want to know that my daughter is going to enjoy a long, happy and healthy life.

I think that the Iraqi ground defenses shot down dozens of missiles. We are in the process of counting all these missiles quickly

Writing the songs and producing the songs and arranging them and recording them is your canvas and your palette and your brush.

Your brain at positive is 31% more productive than your brain at negative, neutral or stressed.