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" Autobiographical fiction is very tricky. "

Autobiographical

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" Dame Barbara Cartland was an endearing eccentric, and when I interviewed her, she wanted me to listen to her dictating to her secretary one of those romantic novels that she turned out fortnightly. "

" I have written favourably in support of subsidy for the arts since the 1960s, and I continue to believe absolutely in subsidy, as I do in the BBC licence fee. "

" I was brought up in a strong working-class community by working-class parents and relations until I was 18, and that's what I really am. Now all sorts of things have been added, but that's what I am. "

" I was born in a radio world, and I got so much from it. "

" The BBC does a sterling job, but I'd like to see it do more. ITV does four arts programmes a year; it used to be 28. At least Sky, with its two arts channels, is trying. "

" Few places on earth have been as affectionately alchemised into literature as the Lake District. "

" The arts stimulate imagination. They provoke thought. And then, having done that, all sorts of other things happen. "

" It was my idea for high culture and popular culture to be treated equally. "

Popular Culture

" Grime reminds me, if there is an echo, of sort of near enough like Liverpool in the very early Sixties. It's a lot of kids obsessed with music - obsessed with it. "

" My memory seems to be holding on quite well. There is no reason why it shouldn't if you keep training it. "

" I'm not a fan of the working class being mocked, including by some of our famous writers - even those who came from it. "

" Work is a great blotter up. It stops you thinking, which is useful. No, it stops you feeling. "

" The abolition of slavery was driven by the King James Bible. It gave slaves a common language and purpose. "

" A lot of the novels I admire are 'admirably provincial.' "

" I don't go around thinking I'm attractive or not attractive. It has never occurred to me. People don't think like that where I come from... No one has ever said, 'Oh, he's a good-looking bloke.' They just didn't use those words about men. "

" I like the fact George R. R. Martin took Shakespeare's political plays as material, but he also took on all sorts of other sensational stories and mingled them in together. "

" The best of pop in our country is among the best of the arts that we do. And Britain does the arts as well as, and sometimes better than, anybody else on the planet. "

" I got the job I wanted when I was 22, and I'm not going to give it up now. "

" There are two big beasts in the arts: the BBC and Sky Arts - challenging, leading the way. "

" I'll never forget my interview with Barry Humphries - one of the oddest I've ever done. He insisted that for half the time he appeared as Dame Edna. So I interviewed the real Barry Humphries in a suit and tie, and then I interviewed Edna in full fig in her dressing room, where she criticised Barry mercilessly. "

" Like university science departments, the arts have shown how they can earn their way and point to an economically newborn future for this country. They show that the U.K. could be a prime provider of imaginative riches and intellectual adventure, which I think are the two great prizes of the 21st century. "

" I think television does tease out a certain vanity in everybody when you look at yourself and you go, 'Oh Christ.' Maybe that's why my intros get shorter and shorter. "

" I don't want closure, I don't know what that means or why you would want it. "

" If I meet pals, we do hug each other, and it's very nice, you know... it's something that's come on me late and became second nature, and it's first nature now! "

" I've been writing since I was 19. "

" We start out as sand and soot out there in the universe, and who knows, in 40 trillion years' time we might come back. But if we come back without memory, it doesn't really interest me. "

" Britain is undoubtedly becoming more cultural. No question of it. People who say it is dumbing down simply don't look around enough. They don't know enough. "

" People in jobs that they hate must be worn out. "

" Control, like curiosity, can be an exterminator. "

" I sometimes think the only true record of England is the 'Cumberland News.' "