Melvyn Bragg

“I was born in a radio world, and I got so much from it.”

“Like university science departments, the arts have shown how they can earn their way and point to an economically newborn future for this country. They show that the U.K. could be a prime provider of imaginative riches and intellectual adventure, which I think are the two great prizes of the 21st century.”

“Few places on earth have been as affectionately alchemised into literature as the Lake District.”

“I'm a class mongrel.”

“Writers are looking for a story. Using your own life as the basis for a story gives it an association with reality that's a wonderful starting point.”

“More people go to Tate Modern than watch the Arsenal.”

“I love writing, and I love making arts programmes.”

“Craig has explored the darker recesses of 007's psyche. He has shown us the lonely man. And he has shown him falling truly in love.”

“Too old at 72? Careful. Ageism is out. We'll have the law on you!”

“In the 1990s, from the estates of Scotland came the phenomenon of Irvine Welsh. 'Trainspotting' demanded its place not only in the high ranks of contemporary fiction but as a describer of a Britain that literally and metaphorically was in a deep mess.”

“Film has changed the way we look at the past.”

“If I meet pals, we do hug each other, and it's very nice, you know... it's something that's come on me late and became second nature, and it's first nature now!”

“We listened to a lot of drama, adaptations of books, comedy. There was a real love of music expressed in choirs, because you didn't have to have instruments except your voice.”

“My memory seems to be holding on quite well. There is no reason why it shouldn't if you keep training it.”

“Darwin talks about evolution, but he doesn't say how it started. Maybe the sense of mystery will dissolve in the face of science, but I am not so sure. We are all described by the human genome, but it's getting people nowhere.”

“I have written favourably in support of subsidy for the arts since the 1960s, and I continue to believe absolutely in subsidy, as I do in the BBC licence fee.”

“Britain is undoubtedly becoming more cultural. No question of it. People who say it is dumbing down simply don't look around enough. They don't know enough.”

“The class barricades have been stormed by the forces of a broad culture, which is made up of clusters of individuals who have decided for themselves what they will be in society.”

“I am 74 now. Looking back, I have a sense of not really being in control of my career. I just went where it took me.”

“In an arts programme, my job was to go where the talent was. And the talent was in popular culture.”