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

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" 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. "

" Now, perfectly ordinary people will give each other hugs. I mean, it used to be that a hug was reserved for if you came back from Australia - you know, back in the '40s and '50s. "

" Darwin talks about evolution, but he doesn't say how it started. Maybe the sense of mystery will dissolve in the face of science, but I am not so sure. We are all described by the human genome, but it's getting people nowhere. "

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

" I don't feel like I'm slowing down. "

" It is very difficult for middle-aged, institutionalised males who have done so well out of subsidy - and, fair play, given much back - to realise that there is a time to be a well-heeled revolutionary. "

" A lot of the novels that I've really enjoyed in my life, whether it's Tolstoy's 'Cossacks,' or 'Sons and Lovers' or 'Jude the Obscure' or 'David Copperfield' or 'Herzog,' have an autobiographical spine. "

" If you look at the creative economy in this country, it's per capita way bigger than any other in the world. "

" It is in our culture that we don't want to admit that our culture is good. "

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

" In an arts programme, my job was to go where the talent was. And the talent was in popular culture. "

" 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'm going to try and make you take the Beatles and Eric Clapton as seriously as the Berlin Philharmonic and Simon Rattle. "

" 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. "

" More people go to Tate Modern than watch the Arsenal. "

" I've been making arts programmes for almost 50 years, and every day, I can't believe my luck. "

" 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. "

" Class doesn't create culture anymore. "

" Once, the arts were opera, ballet, classical music, and everything else deemed highbrow. "

" Craig has explored the darker recesses of 007's psyche. He has shown us the lonely man. And he has shown him falling truly in love. "

" I enjoy writing. Would I rather be playing golf? No. Would I rather be fishing? No. "

" Magna Carta has 63 clauses in abbreviated Latin. Two of them that are still on the statute book, numbers 39 and 40, could be said to have changed the way in which the free world has grown. "

" One of the great things about making 'Reel History' was meeting British people from all over the class system. It made me realise that London is a different country. "

" What artists are doing, and what people who are receiving the arts are doing, is entering into this agreement to occupy a parallel world. The parallel world is ever-expanding. We used to think that it existed only for people who were wealthy, well-born, or educated. It isn't like that. "

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

" I love writing, and I love making arts programmes. "

" That's why writing is important to me. Time goes past, and you've been somewhere and come back that hasn't hurt you, and you've been somebody else. "

" There is an army of the informed wanting to be more informed. "

" The class barricades have been stormed by the forces of a broad culture, which is made up of clusters of individuals who have decided for themselves what they will be in society. "

" 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. "