Earthly life is merely the infancy of our soul. What comes after physical death is, I imagine, like returning home.

The contributor to the programme I remember with the most pleasure is the man who said that not existing for thousands and thousands of years before his birth had never worried him for a moment, so why should going back into non-existence at this death cause him dismay? Everyone laughed when he said that and so did I, and as I laughed I thought: “Dead right!”

I don't believe in an afterlife. I don't believe in a single or multiple godhead. I respect people who do, but I don't believe it myself. But there's a big but which enters in here. I am much more conscious than I ever was, for obvious reasons, of what it will mean to people left behind once I'm dead. It won't mean anything for me. But it will mean a lot to them. ... So in one curious way I've come to believe in the afterlife as a place where I still have moral responsibilities, just as I do in this life except that I can only exercise them before I get there. Once I get there, it'll be too late.

I think we become stars.

To experience the utter powerlessness of locked-in syndrome.

Becoming doubly incontinent.

I wanted to be a doctor, like my father.

Every time I got a lucrative voiceover, I bought a picture. The most expensive was by James Gillray.

When the media, en masse, reported my imminent demise.

Glenda Jackson said I was an amateur during rehearsal for The White Devil at the Old Vic. I called her a cow, but that was inadequate.