“And while we're on the subject of ducks, which we plainly are, the story, 'The Ugly Duckling' ought be banned as the central character wasn't a duckling or he wouldn't have grown up into a swan. He was a cygnet.”

“Perhaps if we could popularise through the techniques of branding and consumerism, a different idea, a different narrative, perhaps the world can change. After all it changes constantly and incessantly, it's just the perceptions that we have are governed by people with self-interest and are not inalignment with the health and safety of us as individuals or as a planet.”

“People don't realize that the future is just now, but later.”

“I'm doing 'Rock of Ages' one day, making out with Russell Brand. Soon after that, I'm advocating with Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Cynthia Nixon for marriage equality.”

“Be led by your talent, not by your self-loathing; those other things you just have to manage.”

“Say I feel all sad and self-indulgent, then get stung by a wasp, my misery feels quite abstract and I long just to be in spiritual pain once more - 'damn you tiny assassin, clad in yellow and black, how I crave my former innocence where melancholy was my only trial'.”

“Strength does not have to be belligerent and loud.”

“I don't know if this is the kind of retrospective analysis that people are fond of applying to their work or actions, but it feels like I knew I was going to be famous and I knew that an element of that would be traumatic, so that if I could make myself something big and otherworldly, it would be a kind of defence.”

“When I was growing up, I thought I'd be a lot happier if I was famous and successful and if I had money.”

“I didn't cross the line, you drew it in after I traversed it.”

“Invisible violence in Pakistan, violence against brown people, ongoing violence in Iraq — that's got to be quantified in the same way as the cinematic glamorous violence that happens in recognisable cities.”