overheard

When I was young I could stay up for four nights and still look wonderful. Not any more.

Marianne Faithfull, Times

There's a strange sort of role reversal when you meet these types of people. Angus Deayton and Clive Anderson, I met them at a John Birt party recently and they were pretty serious, whereas I always want to see people like them at parties and joke with them because they're what I might have become.

John Sergeant, political commentator, on his alternative career option, Guardian

I am not against it. I'm all for it in fact. I've just read about laser surgery, which sounds wonderful. I shall investigate, believe me.

Sian Phillips, actress, on the surgeon's knife, Independent

For God's sake, I'm 34 years old, I'm a mom, I'm a college teacher. People don't read my books because of my personality, but for the content that I've been sitting on my butt for years to create.

Naomi Wolf, author of The Beauty Myth, Guardian

Either you are too ugly to be taken seriously or you are too pretty to be taken seriously. It's a standard way of shooting down feminists.

Wolf, ibid

Me and two buddies stole enough money to buy a quarter of pot. I guess it was laced with something - angel dust maybe - because I just had a terrible experience. I ran through a door and ended up in hospital for a whole summer.

Jon Bon Jovi on his only drugs experience (at the age of 13),

Daily Telegraph

Actors have access. People let us in and allow us to watch and observe. We are, as Shakespeare called us, the chroniclers of our time.

Al Pacino, Independent

I'm not your Mr Sexy type. I'm not strong and silent. I talk too much and probably, at my best, I'm more cuddly than anything else.

Rufus Sewell, actor, Guardian

The problem was George Eliot wanted to shag Will Ladislaw, and because of that she didn't give him the benefit of the other dimensions she gave the others.

Sewell, ibid

I confessed to Will Hutton that I'd had a bad patch with smack and I did take a tiny nub end of gear on the f*****g flight ... So I was smacked out on the Prime Minister's jet, big deal.

Will Self, former Observer columnist, IoS

"If I hadn't wasted so many years, I'd probably be at the point I've reached now, anyway. Should I have taken the planned path, studied music at the Royal Academy and sung Mozart for the last twenty years, I'd probably have discovered Weill and still be doing exactly what I am now. Instead I chose the empirical route."

Marianne Faithfull, singer, reclaiming the wasted years. Times.