I think I actually wrote it in one of my poems is that my decline has been the making of me - I forget how I put it. Yeah, simply more reflective. I haven't got the excuse of moving forward just on impulse anymore, which I did, I think, for a long, long time.

And now, weak, short of breath, my once-firm muscles melted away by cancer, I find my thoughts, increasingly, not on the supernatural or spiritual, but on what is meant by living a good and worthwhile life — achieving a sense of peace within oneself. I find my thoughts drifting to the Sabbath, the day of rest, the seventh day of the week, and perhaps the seventh day of one’s life as well, when one can feel that one’s work is done, and one may, in good conscience, rest.

Every single morning the sun comes up and you get to try again.

To be inquisitive.

On Angela's Ashes, Alan Parker said to me, 'You've got the Bafta, just get in the door.' I was walking along the street to go into a shop and he saw me milking it a bit. It was a really good piece of advice.

All this nonsense in the Middle East. It's hard not to think about it.

Like safety, that you've got everything covered; no stress, no fear.

Losing my family in some way.

To John, a really close friend who died last year. I'd love to see him one more time and say, 'Look, I'm sorry I wasn't around enough during your life.'

The birth of my first child, July 4 2002.