ARTS / Overheard

I wake up some hours later in another house that I have no recollection of getting to, with a bottle of whisky still in my hand . . .

Confessions of a big-name

theatre director,

from Stephen Daldry's

Edinburgh diary, Guardian

There's something about prancing around on stage hoping people are going to like you which is rather pathetic . . . I have no interest in the West End as an actor. As a director, though - I wouldn't mind.

Sir Anthony Hopkins,

Daily Telegraph

The idea that the first guy I ever slept with is now married and has kids really breaks me up.

Madonna, singer-actress,

telling Cosmopolitan (US)

about the loss of her virginity

I've never had a bad experience with sex.

Dolly Parton, singer-actress, ibid

It was the making of me. It was the day I was born.

Lord (Lew) Grade, 87-year-old

TV mogul, on the moment, 51

years ago, when he smoked his

first cigar, Daily Telegraph

Howard (Donald) is the only one to get his bum out. He has the best bum.

Mark Owen, of Take That,

on the band's new stage show,

Press Association

We do everything tongue in cheek, it's all about fun.

Gary Barlow, also of Take That

No insight is so satisfying as one about the whole love thing. Not that I've had any.

Rob Newman, comedian and

novelist, The Face

For alarmingly large chunks of each day, I am a moron.

Stephen North, actor, starring

in a dramatisation of Nick

Hornby's book Fever Pitch at

Edinburgh, Guardian