Arts: Overheard

The less you do, the higher

you go.

Michael Caine, on acting,

The Late Late Show (C4)

Of course there have been flops. And whether anyone likes it or not, all the biggest flops have been females.

Harry Thompson, producer

of Have I Got News for You?,

on his guests, Time Out

I like breaking songs. I like songs with scars on them.

Tom Waits, supperclub growler,

Pulse magazine

Newspapers and journals are full of painful and often inaccurate mentions of particular people.

Karl Miller, ex-editor, London

Review of Books, Guardian

Not greatly gifted, not deeply beautiful, Madonna tells Am-erica that fame comes from wanting it badly enough. And everyone is terribly good at badly wanting things.

Martin Amis, novelist,

reviewing Sex, Observer

They chatted on the edge of a king-sized double bed in London's Hyde Park Hotel, where the lighting was intimate and the chemistry between the two was said to be tingling.

The Press Association,

on the interview Madonna

gave Jonathan Ross

One thing we covered in greater length than I thought we would was toe-sucking.

Ross's own version of events