overheard

Kids have been masturbating and crashing cars for years; I don't think I'm going to contribute to that ... People fasten their seatbelts after they see the film. I've probably saved lives.

David Cronenberg, director of Crash, Times

My greatest responsibility is to me ... I don't trust any but a very few people. If you think that's vain, then fine.

Charles Dance, actor, Guardian

I'd be shitting myself large bricks of everything and my waters would certainly tremble.

Karl Wallinger, of World Party, on standing in as the fourth Beatle, Independent

I might feel like a writer when I have produced a body of work. At the moment I have only produced a finger of work, or at the very most, two fingers.

Patrick Marber, playwright of Closer, Daily Telegraph

Plink. Plink. Whaaarh. Glock.

Polly James, of The Liver Birds, impersonating Schonberg, Independent

A bloke called Verdi had a go with Aida. We're slinging out the problem area - Verdi's music - and keeping the story with Elton's music and my words.

Tim Rice, working with Elton John on a new Aida, Telegraph

There is no talent or style or balls or imagination in the haters. At least they've made me the most controversial painter alive. Not a bad thing to be.

The painter R B Kitaj before leaving England for America, [ital]Independent

It's a pretty well-known novel, and we didn't fuck it up.

Charles Dance on the succes of ITV's production of Rebecca, Guardian.

There is only one relationship, and that's me.

Flemish Artist, Jan Fabre, on himself, [ital] Independent

Death is a challenge. I'm not in a flap; I am curious. It is also a temptation.

Novelist Saul Bellow on his near fatal dose of food poisoning. [ital]Telegraph.

Liberal society encourages us to lead completely private lives - I see it as a fool's paradise.

Novelist Saul Bellow, [ital] Telegraph

We use food as a metaphor for art, for acting, for film-making.

Stanley Tucci on [ital]Big Night, the restaurant-based film of which he is co-writer, co-director, and star, [ital] Times.

The only problem with writing about sex is self-censorship...But once you've crossed that Rubicon, the sky's the limit. You just write the most appalling filth and it's very enjoyable.

Patrick Marber, playwright of [ital]Closer, Telegraph.

The problem is writing... with heart and passion and compassion without being soft. The enemy is squelchiness.

Patrick Marber, playwright of [ital]Closer, Telegraph.

The dilemma facing all revolutionaries is that their talent to seize power is quite unrelated to the skills essential for administering and holding it.

Gabriel Kolko, author of [ital]Vietnam: Anatomy of War and Peace, Guardian.

It's a bit steep coming from someone who has taken four years to make an album, I suppose, but when that comfortable chubbiness sets in, and you wake up thinking 'Hey! I used to be Peter Pan and now I'm Bernard Manning,' well, it's a spur to be getting on with it.

I just love him for being a dope-smoking knight - if he still smokes dope, that is.

ibid, on Paul McCartney

I'd be shitting myself large bricks of everything and my waters would certainly tremble.

ibid, on the prospect of replacing John Lennon as the fourth Beatle.

We started by making a list of everything we haed about Broadway muscals and then set ourselves a goal of thrying to figure out how to succeed without using a single one of those cliches.