This calls for a very special blend of psychology and extreme violence.

Books are the key. A book cannot be accessed from afar. You have to hold it, you have to read it.

I see dull people as projects ... to be reformed

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!

The worst thing about being a great power is when you're not one any more. It takes centuries to get over it.

If only the strength of the love that people feel when it is reciprocated could be as intense and obsessive as the love we feel when it is not; then marriages would be truly made in heaven.

I resent the creation of a world in which beauty is a reminder of what we're losing rather than a celebration of what we have.