You have to have enough respect for other human beings to leave their lives alone. If you admire that life build it for yourself. Don't just try to come in and take somebody else's life.

And I find - I'm 63 and my capacity to be by myself and just spend time by myself hasn't diminished any. That's the necessary part of being a writer you better like being alone.

The principal contributor to loneliness in this country is television. What happens is that the family 'gets together' alone.

If I was writing songs just for me I'd only play them in my living room alone.

Comics for me is being able to sing alone in the shower. I find it freeing. You just pick up a pen and get to it.

I have no time for those who say there is no way Scotland could go it alone. I know first-hand the contribution Scotland and Scots make to Britain's success - so for me there's no question about whether Scotland could be an independent nation.

I'm very shy really. I spend a lot of time in my room alone reading or writing or watching television.

Can anyone understand how it is to have lived in the White House and then suddenly to be living alone as the President's widow?

You could say in a vulgar Freudian way that I am the unhappy child who escapes into books. Even as a child I was most happy being alone. This has not changed.

Happiness is spiritual born of truth and love. It is unselfish therefore it cannot exist alone but requires all mankind to share it.