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There are times when I'm doing QI and I'm going, 'Ha ha, yeah, yeah,' and inside I'm going 'I want to fucking die. I … want … to … fucking … die.'(Sou...more

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Having a great intellect is no path to being happy.

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...Catholic versus Protestant, essentially. It's that kind of fight. ... And it goes on to this day. Will we never learn? Who knows? Religion. Shit it...more

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Seriousness is no more a guarantee of truth, insight, authenticity or probity, than humour is a guarantee of superficiality and stupidity.

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The alarm in the morning? Well, I have an old tape of Carlo Maria Giulini conducting the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra in a perfectly transcendent ver...more

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There is simply no limit to the tyrannical snobbery that otherwise decent people can descend into when it comes to music.

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Music is everything and nothing. It is useless and no limit can be set on its use. Music takes me to places of illimitable sensual and insensate joy, ...more

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Anger fed him and clothed him and he owed it much.

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Great writers, I discovered, were not to be bowed down before and worshipped, but embraced and befriended. Their names resounded through history not b...more