- As I get older I look at my first kids and realise how terribly I short-changed them. They all somehow grew up to be incredibly nice and kind. But I think this was because they grew up trying to work out how to please their rampaging, dysfunctional father.
- This Government is almost beyond satirising. The tail really does wag the dog. Policy is not about people having strong moral principles. The question they ask in Downing Street is: 'Will this policy play well with the Daily Mail?' They are like a sitcom looking for ratings. They panic. They make policies on the hoof. The Daily Mail ran an article about aggressive begging and the next day the Government came up with a policy of marching offenders to cash points. How thought through was that?
- I think this Government attracts and deserves the mockery it gets. It is mock-worthy. When Blair was elected I had such high hopes. I was so excited about the possibilities. Now I feel quite disillusioned and bitter. I feel I've been made to look a fool for trusting Blair.
- I arrived in adulthood with a satchel of goods and one of the things in my satchel was [the feeling] that I'm not quite enough. It's not a problem, it's just the way things are. I just lack. I'm a lacking person who's a bit of a disappointment.
- You can't play a villain as a villain because they don't think of themselves as such. Hitler never had a bad idea. To him, they were good ideas.
- When I'm dead, I'll be perfect but up until that point . . . I seem to be a slow learner and it's taken me a long time to get that one message, the message that I crave hearing. Not, 'Darling, you were brilliant' but 'You know something, you're OK'. Just to be OK is something I crave.
- I was an only child and I grew up among adults who were all quite high-fliers - famous actors and poets and playwrights - and so I never really felt I knew how to fit in. I wanted to go and find some frogs and ride a bike and so I felt embarrassed that I didn't want to play Chopin or join in a discussion about Proust. I didn't really have friends as a kid.
- My older kids have taught me a lot about being a better parent. The Japanese have a lovely phrase that sums it all up, that the young grow up the branches of the old and the old grow down the branches of the young. I think that's very right. I've learned a lot about myself through my kids.
- A friend once told me he thought my going to therapy was just a crutch. At first I was quite hurt, but then I thought, 'Well, it's true. A crutch helps you to walk and that's what I want to do'. I'm not very good at this life thing, I do need help and I feel much better for having therapy.
- Expectations are just planned resentments in my experience, so I don't do expectations any more.
- Ninety-nine per cent of the time, when people are sitting in a therapist's chair they're not saying anything earth-shatteringly upsetting, weird or mad, they're just talking about the humdrum details of life. And that is where I get interested.
- I worry to the best of my ability, almost constantly I worry. It's one of my chief skills. I do it at almost every available moment. It is like a narcotic sort of thing.
- I'm desperately hung up and dependent on people's opinion of me. I've always been like this, I don't know whether I'm OK until I find out whether you think I'm OK or not, because you outrank me. You have the authority to decide whether I'm a good or bad person, and I don't.
- I am what I do. I'm only as good a human being as my last job. If my last job was praised, then I'm a good person. If they thought it was less than good, then I'm a less than good person.
- I've told myself a story that's made my life bearable, and I've found out that it's a true story. The trick is, whatever you believe turns out to be true.
- Being a parent is the most creative thing that you can do, but it's a terrible pressure, too. Someone once said even telephone operators receive training, but you need nothing to have children. Then suddenly you have these vulnerable human beings on your hands who need you to model the world for them. It's not easy.
- I've been in therapy for years. I see it like going to the gym. It's a way of improving your general level of emotional well-being. When you first go you'll ache, and it really hurts after the first couple of sessions. But if you keep on going, the things that were once gnawing at you aren't quite as intense.
- My career was being a drunk, and work was something I did if I had a spare five minutes. I frightened people. I looked ill. I weighed eight stone and looked like death not warmed up. I passed out a lot. I was self-destructive. It wasn't just the drinking, it was the mindset: you don't like yourself if you are an alcoholic and other people don't like you either, because your behaviour is appalling. You are dishonest, disloyal, full of self-pity.
- One of the most enjoyable things about People Like Us (1999) is the fraudulent aspect of it, which is that if we've done our job properly, someone could stumble across it, and five minutes later think, 'God this is awful ', and five minutes after that choose, independently of the show, to find it funny.
- The tabloids are a bit like the secret police. Everyone despises them but everyone's terrified of them at the same time.
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