So when you find yourself locked onto an unpleasant train of thought, heading for the places in your past where the screaming is unbearable, remember there's always madness. Madness is the emergency exit.

I doubt that there are many screenplays of movies that either of us have seen over the past 10 years that were first drafts, or were the work of purely one person. In my world, the actors and the director are all made of paper, and they do exactly what I say. I feel much more in control of the finished work. I feel like the statement that I'm making - even though it's in a medium by no means as glamorous or as widely recognized as film - is at least the statement that I wanted to make. That's a lot more important to me than the allure of working for Hollywood.

There's been a growing dissatisfaction and distrust with the conventional publishing industry, in that you tend to have a lot of formerly reputable imprints now owned by big conglomerates.

It's all a joke! Everything anybody ever valued or struggled for... it's all a monstrous, demented gag! So why can't you see the funny side? Why aren't you laughing?

It's cold and it's mean spirited and I don't like it here anymore.

I am not saying people should not be free to join whichever reason they choose but should we be forced to live our lives around a belief system that originated somewhere around the fourth or fifth century BC. I cannot see any more reason to base a belief system around Christianity, Judaism or Islam than I can around Lord of the Rings.

I'm disappointed in you, Adrian. I'm very disappointed. Reassembling myself was the first trick I learned. It didn't kill Osterman. Did you really think it would kill me? I have walked across the surface of the sun. I have witnessed events so tiny and so fast, they could hardly be said to have occurred at all. But you, Adrian, you're just a man. The world's smartest man poses no more threat to me than does its smartest termite.