The joy of writing drama is putting yourself into different people's heads.

I always do like to write love stories, even if they end tragically.

I'm not one of these people who say how much better American drama is than English. I find it mostly too American, except for The Sopranos, which I think is the best thing.

I suppose I have the tastes of someone who teaches at a university in the provinces.

I had a very high opinion of my father's judgement of things and he said, "You better get a job that pays the bills because a writer doesn't make any money. If possible, get a job that allows you to write in your spare time."

When you see two writers named on a movie, one of them did some drafts and got the boot.

An adaptation I was working on of Trollope's 'The Pallisers' has been axed by the BBC... I was also going to do Dickens' 'Dombey and Son' but they've asked me to do 'David Copperfield' instead.