People in London think of London as the center of the world, whereas New Yorkers think the world ends three miles outside of Manhattan.

I wouldn't describe myself as a master of anything.

I really like the Observer. I think I'd love to have a column with a broad reach that would enable me to do some proper reporting, but keep it on sort of a humorous level. I've always had a very happy experience writing for them.

People in London think of London as the center of the world, whereas New Yorkers think the world ends three miles outside of Manhattan.

'Top Chef' is a very smooth-running machine. All the people working there are incredibly professional and absolutely at the top of their game.

America thinks of itself as a meritocracy, so people have more respect for success and more contempt for failure.

I expect that in 40 years' time I'll be writing political tomes and working for an organisation like Oxfam.

I miss being fawned over by restaurateurs and chefs.

I swear, I didn't really go in thinking, 'I'll be the Simon Cowell' of 'Top Chef.' I was just used to being a judge on British food shows where people are much more outspoken and rather rude. That's the culture over here.

I think I've been wishing for celebrity for so long that I've got used to being someone who's petitioning the establishment for acceptance... my whole schtick, my whole identity, is so wrapped up in being a petitioner that I don't really know how to react now that petition has been granted.

I tried being a mechanic and I tried catering, but I realized I had even less aptitude for semi-skilled labour than for academic work.

I was once hired to write a column for 'The Guardian' and then got fired before I'd submitted my first one. That was unusual. Most newspapers wait until I've written at least one piece for them before firing me.

I've become a professional failure - in order to pay the mortgage I have to remain unemployed. Luckily, a disaster always seems to befall me at exactly the right moment.

I've never been to a shrink. But my parents were very psychologically literate - my father had undergone Freudian analysis - and we often talked about other people in psychological terms, so I picked up a lot of that.

If anything bad happens, the media will leap on it. We're under a huge obligation to be successful.

In Britain, by contrast, we still think that class plays a part in determining a person's life chances, so we're less inclined to celebrate success and less inclined to condemn failure. The upshot is that it's much easier to be a failure in Britain than it is in America.

It's very different doing a food show in America and doing one in Britain. I did a 20-part series for the BBC series called 'Eating With the Enemy.' The budget for all 20 episodes was probably the budget for a single episode of 'Top Chef.' It's the difference between making a home movie in your backyard and going to Hollywood.

My life's ambition is to play a James Bond villain. I have the cat and the eye-patch, so I'm just waiting for the call. For some reason, though, the phone hasn't rung.

Oddly, I do have a problem with authority. I find it very difficult to knuckle down and follow rules. Which are the classic symptoms of someone who has a troubled relationship with their father. And yet, I never had a problem with my father.

The moment I'm perceived to be even a tiny bit successful, my career will go down the pan.

There's no reason why you can't deliver a grammar-school curriculum to an all-ability intake.

When I was writing my column, I would almost always be recognized when I was in a restaurant, even if I was reviewing it and had booked under a fake name, so free stuff would start coming out of the kitchen on a conveyer belt, fantastic wines would be opened at my table. Now I can't even get a reservation on the pizza joint on the corner.

You know when you tell a self-deprecating story at a dinner party, everyone's laughing along with you? But then when someone else repeats that same story at another dinner party you feel they're all laughing at you?

And it was only released in London last week, so when I go back to England Monday or whatever, I am expecting heaps of adulation. I'm hoping there is. If that doesn't happen I will be disappointed.

My cousins gay, he went to London only to find out that Big Ben was a clock.

I started going back and forth, New York, London, New York, London. I wasn't looking back at all. I was doing tons of jobs. Working, working, working, working.

During our stay in London for the first time I was able to establish personal contact with some of the organic chemists, whose work I knew and admired from the literature. I found them most gracious and helpful.

London is a roost for every bird.

One of the special characteristics of New York is that it is different from a London or a Paris because it's the financial capital, and the cultural capital, but not the political capital.

Fancy your having no sunshine in London yesterday! Here it was glorious, like full summer, and I sat up with the window wide open, listening to the discourse of two amorous thrushes.

Well, I heard of Sunny Ade, and looks as if his music is gonna be big on a global level, because I was in London the other day and some people asked me to review the album.

I live in London and I am a British subject, although I do write in Spanish, of course.

I loved living in London, and I didn't want to leave.

After living in LA for 8 years, I sort of wanted a change, but there's not much production in New York, which is where I primarily live, so I just sort of drifted over to London.

By seeing London, I have seen as much of life as the world can show.

I was born in London, and went to school in Scotland - I used to be dead tired when I got home at night.

At the art college in Edinburgh someone arranged for some London groups to come up and play. I was in a supporting band, with Bernie Green I think. Derek Bailey was one of the visiting musicians. He seemed to like my playing and asked me to come down to London.

Three hundred years ago a prisoner condemned to the Tower of London carved on the wall of his cell this sentiment to keep up his spirits during his long imprisonment: 'It is not adversity that kills, but the impatience with which we bear adversity.

The Royal Festival Hall in London is nice; people hang out there. I think this inviting, non-exclusive character is very important.

My return to London introduced me to a wider range of society.

Vicars, MPS and lawyers were amont those who considered me to be the best hostess in London.

Very good wine was bought at ten pounds per pipe, the contract price; but the superior quality was fifteen pounds; and some of this was not much inferior to the best London Madeira.

Our hearts and prayers go out to the people in London and in Egypt. We're very concerned about it. We are providing our expertise to aid in the investigation in London.

Of course I've done musicals here in London.

When I did it, I was a starving musician in London in a basement flat, but a simple tune with the right singer or the right situation can become very well liked and accepted. I'm only too pleased to say it happened with that one.

I came back out here from England and I was there for a while and it was beautiful and it is just great to see London going from Spring to Summer and Autumn.

There's something about doing theatre in London - it sinks a little bit deeper into your soul as an actor. It's something about the tradition of theatre, about performing on the West End stage.

The day Tarzan opened in London, I sat in a hotel room and discussed the project in detail.

For a London play, rehearsal time would be four weeks for the entire show. In films, I'd spend six weeks on the big dance numbers to get them perfect before the actual shooting.