I do think culture is an argument, and that was part of the way I was brought up. People at a social occasion in Ireland will start shouting and arguing. When the Yeats family lived in Bedford Park, they had to go round to the neighbours to say, 'You might think we are fighting, but this is the way we talk to each other.'

I went to a grim Victorian school with classes of 40 or 50 children. It was a very rigid and unimaginative education, but it did teach us the three Rs.

I think ideas should be flying about and banging into each other. It is a kind of energy. If you occupy static positions, then things sort of ossify.

Tom Paulin Quotes