Well, it's so hard for books to take off. You give years of your life to something that probably won't happen, so when it does, it feels a little... unjust.

Of course, after nearly a quarter of a century, the questions about our distant pasts have all been posed and we’re left with ‘how was your day?’ and ‘when will you be home?’ and ‘have you put the bins out?’ Our biographies involve each other so intrinsically now that we’re both on nearly every page. We know the answers because we were there, and so curiosity becomes hard to maintain; replaced, I suppose, by nostalgia.

Okay, well I think the programme is like being screamed at for an hour by a drunk with a strobe-light, but like I said –.

But like my dad used to say, the crucial thing about an education is the opportunity that it brings, the doors it opens, because otherwise knowledge, in and of itself, is a blind alley, especially from where I’m sitting.

It’s in vain to recall the past, unless it works some influence upon the present. Charles Dickens, David Copperfield.

I would never complain about ‘One Day’ taking off, but it made me painfully self-conscious for a long time.

I’m aware that couples tend to embellish ‘how we met’ folklore with all kinds of detail and significance. We shape and sentimentalise these first encounters into creation myths to reassure ourselves and our offspring that it was somehow ‘meant to be’.

I’m trying to be inspiring! I’m trying to lift your grubby soul for the great adventure that lies ahead of you!

It had sometimes puzzled me why falling in love should be regarded as some wondrous event, accompanied by soaring strings, when it so often ended in humiliation, despair or acts of awful cruelty.

Imagine staying awake all night not because you’re worried about the future but because it’s FUN.