Tony Parsons

“I am a sweet old softy, but it took toughness to get through what I went through.”

“The tattooed nation will live to regret this voluntary disfigurement.”

“People are always surprised at what a nice guy I am.”

“...all that we do is governed by the law of opposites in which every so-called positive act is exactly and equally balanced by its opposite.”

“Tattoos are so widespread, so ugly and so very, very permanent. You can, in theory, have them removed - but a large chunk of your living flesh will go with it.”

“I can't think of a bigger waste of police time than chasing somebody who has said something offensive on Twitter.”

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

“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 principal motivation is supporting my family, which is not a bad reason for getting up in the morning. That's always been my motivation - to take care of the people who rely on me.”

“I'm not saying it's what I would have wanted. But don't you see? We fuck up our lives again and again and it's always our children who pick up the bill. We move on to new relationships, always starting over, always thinking we've got another chance to get it right, it's the kids from all these broken marriages who pay the price. They - my son, your daughters, all the millions like them - are carrying around wounds that are going to last a lifetime. It has to stop.”

“There are a handful of barbecue seafood shacks on the beach at Hat Nai Yang, which is a fabulous place to have dinner. It's very much run for locals and they serve the catch of the day, which might be lobster, white snapper or squid. It's ridiculously reasonable, too.”

“I box for four hours a week and my diet is pretty healthy.”

“The thing I care about is my weight - I'm as fanatical about it as a member of Girls Aloud. I weigh myself every morning. I know exactly what I want to be - 82kg - and I try to stick to it.”

“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.”

“Grammar schools are public schools without the sodomy.”

“The most convincing argument against early parenthood is that you are in a relationship that is likely to fall apart before that child grows up.”

“I feel like the only person in the world who sees David Beckham modelling his swimming pants on the cover of Elle magazine and thinks - oh, how much better a handsome guy like you would look, David, without all those dumb ink stains stitched into your skin.”

“I do tend to look back to my parents generation and think wow! what a great way to be, to live with one person for a lifetime, to bring your kids up in these really solid families.”

“You have to give kids from ordinary families a ladder. You have to show them there's a way out.”

“I am all for cracking down on inappropriate digital behaviour. Too often the connected world is an excuse for some coward hiding behind a keyboard to bully someone else.”