I am interested in the human condition, in what it means to be alive, in the nature of existence.

The only way to get through life is to laugh your way through it. You either have to laugh or cry. I prefer to laugh. Crying gives me a headache.

In a way, I've got some bad news, particularly to anybody who's come to Oxford from abroad. There's a real problem with snobbery, because sometimes people from outside the U.K. imagine that snobbery is a distinctively U.K. phenomenon, fixated on country houses and titles. The bad news is that's not true. Snobbery is a global phenomenon; we area global organization, this is a global phenomenon. What is a snob? A snob is anybody who takes a small part of you, and uses that to come to a complete vision of who you are. That is snobbery.

There’s a kind of sadness in the air, but it’s a sadness that makes you feel alive.