The only times I'm not relaxed are when I haven't got a project on the go.

There is an obvious connection, on the declining Roman empire's bread and circuses model, between political enthusiasm for public spectacles and the periods when we are least able to pay for them.

Hackney at certain epochs has given itself suburban airs and graces, before being slapped down and consigned once more to the dump bin of aborted ambition.

An involuntary return to the point of departure is, without doubt, the most disturbing of all journeys.

I met my wife Anne who was a sociology student, and her influence together with activities associated with the student movement of the time opened up my interests amongst other things into the theatre, art, music, politics and philosophy.

The government's War on Poverty has transformed poverty from a short-term misfortune into a career choice.

My experience of American politics is that people raise issues, and they get addressed in an effective but imperfect way. But that's sort of the American system: Mind the problem and worry it, and then we attack it with overwhelming power and put it away - and that's the end of that problem.

We just simply want to get back to basics, get - restore essentially the constitutional foundation of the country, and that means the federal government becoming less onerous, less involved in every - basically every item of our lives. And what that means is there does have to be some transition.