Comedy will always be central to what I do, it's just an instinct for me, but I am a writer and always have been.

Sympathy for victims is always counter-balanced by an equal and opposite feeling of resentment towards them.

My parents were secular. I am an atheist.

My advice to anyone adapting a novel is that once they've read it and learnt to understand it, then they must throw it away and never look at it again!

I try hard not to preach, but I get carried away, which is a mistake, but it's a risk worth running.

Kingsley watched her disappear from the room, wondering if his heart would break. Logic informed him that of course it would not. The heart was no more than a muscle, a pump which distributed blood about the body.

The Germans are a cruel race. Their operas last for six hours and they have no word for fluffy.