You only get out what you put in. Karma – it all comes round.

To live your best life every day, because tomorrow isn’t promised.

I might have made a tactical error in not going to a physician for 20 years. ... It's one of those phobias that didn't pay off. ... How much you're supposed to enjoy every sandwich.

I believe that if, at the end, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do. To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts. We must try to contribute joy to the world. That is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances. We must try. I didn’t always know this and am happy I lived long enough to find it out.

Arrogance, bullying, meanness – just try to be kind, it’s not difficult.

Working in a very busy bar in the West End when I was trying to pay my way through drama school. I had to dance in a cage in a vest and cycling shorts to Venus by Bananarama, Greased Lightnin’ and Y.M.C.A. every night. It was excruciating.

After the birth of both my children, although Manchester United winning the treble in 1999 came pretty close.

Going to pieces while meeting John Squire, the lead guitarist of the Stone Roses, backstage after a gig. I completely lost the ability to speak. I told him I had the same guitars as he’d just used on stage, and when he asked me which ones, the words completely went out of my head and there was a huge pause, and then his wife tapped his shoulder and he wandered off.

Outliving my kids – and rats.

A couple of years ago we moved to East Sussex – I had been living in London for 35 years – and couldn’t work out why I kept waking up and thinking, what’s that sound? It was actually silence.