There was a special challenge in describing the awful childhood of a person who happens to be my own husband. It was very painful at times, for both of us.

I don't like the term mid-life crisis.

The notion of a contemporary epiphany to me is very exciting, because it's a sort of biblical thing. It's something that has happened to people in other centuries or in the context of religious experience.

It is one thing to go on stage and be funny or be in a good place in your career, but for a woman, actually facing the elements in a physical way is a very powerful thing.

Love is an obsession. It has that quality to it. But there are healthy obsessions, and mine is one of them.

So many people suffer from abuse, and suffer alone.

There is a probably natural and learned reticence with myself talking about my early life.

When I came off the boat I was very proud of the thick calluses which had developed on my feet. But now, I am struggling to get into my favourite high heels which is a shame, as I have so many.

Perfect objectivity is always impossible, no matter who writes a person's biography.

There's been a number of erroneous biographies, articles and so on written about Billy and we both thought it would be a good idea to produce a true one.

There was a special challenge in describing the awful childhood of a person who happens to be my own husband. It was very painful at times, for both of us.

I don't think I'm generous enough to be the straight guy. I sort of make my own way and make my own statement. Do I mind pushing myself forward? Not at all.

There seems to be this impression that if I really am a psychotherapist, I can't be serious about it. They think there must be something fishy going on.

I grew up in the suburbs of Sydney, an arid kind of place, but every day I took the ferry across the harbour to get to school. I'd watch the ships coming in and going out.

There may be a point where I may decide to write an autobiography.

I've really written my books for my husband and our family. They've brought us closer together by allowing us to discuss things that were unspoken for so long.

After all my probing into the human brain, I should still be aware of mysteries and come up with them myself.

We have a couple of dogs, but I wouldn't describe myself as an animal person.

The work of a psychotherapist involves being empathic and insightful with one's patients without getting too lost in their painful stories to be helpful.

Suffering from dysentery at sea was no picnic.

I loved my life, but my choices were overloading and overwhelming me. Listening to inner feelings and fulfilling some of these urges when they come along is incredibly important.

Most people who went about saying a ghost had poked them with a brolly would be locked up somewhere.

Being a psychologist did enable me to maintain objectivity.

Sexual dreams aren't usually about sex.

So many people suffer from abuse and suffer alone.

A sister is a little bit of childhood that can never be lost.

A lot of people have gotten into comedy because of certain influences in their lives or events that were painful, and I really have wracked my brain to figure it out. I pretty much have had a normal childhood. Maybe it was too normal.

It sounds ideal, a sort of beach childhood. But it wasn't really. I didn't use the beach very much at all.

All our pursuits, from childhood to manhood, are only trifles of different sorts and sizes, proportioned to our years and views.

The secret of the truly successful, I believe, is that they learned very early in life how not to be busy. They saw through that adage, repeated to me so often in childhood, that anything worth doing is worth doing well.

I don't carry any early childhood trauma around with me, if that's what you're hinting at. The story of the bicycles - and there were three of them which were stolen from me - I've dealt with it well.

Remember Graham Green's dictum that childhood is the bank balance of the writer? I think that all writers feel alienated. Most of us go back to an alienated childhood in some way or another. I know that I do.

Hors d'oeuvres have always a pathetic interest for me; they remind me of one's childhood that one goes through wondering what the next course is going to be like - and during the rest of the menu one wishes one had eaten more of the hors d'oeuvres.

Arguably, no artist grows up: If he sheds the perceptions of childhood, he ceases being an artist.

Everything I write comes from my childhood in one way or another. I am forever drawing on the sense of mystery and wonder and possibility that pervaded that time of my life.

Well I was an asthmatic child. So that for most of my childhood I was in bed. Bedridden.

Happy, happy Christmas, that can win us back to the delusions of our childhood days, recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth, and transport the traveler back to his own fireside and quiet home!

I think actors always retain one foot in the cradle. We're switched on to our youth, to our childhood. We have to be because we're in the business of transferring emotions to other people.

If a nation loses its storytellers, it loses its childhood.

I had a kind of Dickensian childhood.

Friendships in childhood are usually a matter of chance, whereas in adolescence they are most often a matter of choice.

I didn't have a happy childhood.

These days, there are a great many books about childhood trauma and its effects, but at the time all the experts agreed that one should forget about it as quickly as possible and pick up where you left off.

Concepts, like individuals, have their histories and are just as incapable of withstanding the ravages of time as are individuals. But in and through all this they retain a kind of homesickness for the scenes of their childhood.

My whole family actually, but my parents. I had such a normal and amazing childhood. I've been so lucky. My parents are cool and normal. They don't talk about the business and I still have stuff to do at their house.

From childhood I was passionately fond of music and wanted to be a musician. I have no recollection of any real desire ever to be anything else.

I gave up my childhood for a career.

I had the pleasure, as Robin said, to live a childhood dream as many young Americans and Puerto Rican children live that play youth baseball. And I feel honored and very thankful for that opportunity.

The only hero known to my childhood was Henry Clay.