I'm up to my neck in the real world, every day. Just you try doing your VAT return with a head full of goblins.

Imagination! Imagination! I put it first years ago, when I was asked what qualities I thought necessary for success on the stage

Stories of imagination tend to upset those without one.

That's Third Thoughts for you. When a huge rock is going to land on your head, they're the thoughts that think: Is that an igneous rock, such as granite, or is it sandstone?

Well, I think that as a country, we've drifted away from appreciating the importance of imagination.

I've always felt that what I have going for me is not my imagination, because everyone has an imagination. What I have is a relentlessly controlled imagination. What looks like wild invention is actually quite carefully calculated.