When you are a journalist in the music business, as I was, you end up dying or going to the gym - I chose the gym.

Largely this is a class thing - writers tend to be cosseted little middle-class kiddies who think that the world owes them a royalty cheque. But just doing it - being in your room for years on end, locked in your head, alone with invented ghosts - it weakens and softens the body. And I know I can't just live in my head.

My parents have been dead for many years, and when your folks are gone there is nobody standing between you and eternity.

Tony Parsons Quotes