I kept leaning on him and I finally said, 'Mel, this isn't fair.' So I asked him to come on board as a co-writer with credit. And he was happy to do it.

Beware of men who name their products with the initials of their own character.

It's great that after 700 years William Wallace has finally had a proper burial. He did so much for the country. You should be proud of what you have achieved through devolution.

He asked me, so of course I came. And it's also something I like to do. I've read a fair number of stories for Selected Shorts here (a similar program), and it's a wonderful thing to do. I think reading prose in that kind of situation is great, because it's like getting back to the old storytelling roots.

Look, I don't want to wax philosophic, but I will say that if you're alive you've got to flap your arms and legs, you've got to jump around a lot, for life is the very opposite of death, and therefore you must at very least think noisy and colorfully, or you're not alive.

As far as songwriters, I've always been a fan of Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, and George Gershwin; those guys mean a lot to me.