"I cook more theoretically than I do practically. My job is creative, and in the kitchen, the biggest part of my creativity is theoretical."

"If I were a customer, and I was given a dish with peppers, I would hate it. I also don't like blood sausage."

"If a child plays sport early in childhood, and doesn't give it up, he will play sport for the rest of his life. And if children have a connection with, and are involved in the preparation of, the food they eat, then it will be normal for them to cook these kind of meals, and they will go on cooking them for the rest of their lives."

"I don't read books regularly, because I'm always writing them. I've written 30 books, thousands of pages."

"When I was younger, my whole sense of self-worth was based on whether or not I was working, which was awful. And I had a baby at 20 years old, so it wasn't just about me. At around the age of 30 there was a stretch where I wasn't working - certainly not on anything I liked, anyway - and I started to do other things."

"What the Beatles did was something incredible, it was more than what a band could do. We have to give them respect."

"I should do something about the cigarettes I quite accept that it's bad for your health, but you know a moderate tipple is positively beneficial and, at certain times, absolutely essential."

"One thing I'd like to do is angel investing in small companies. That's what's exciting, and if you are lucky to have a bit of money, you can take those risks."