But I've found that to talk too much about movies is the kiss of death. If it happens then it happens, is all.

If, like Harry Keogh, I could talk to the dead - God, there are an awful lot of people I would like to speak to! Not least my father. Being in the army for 22 years, I didnt see enough of him, and I know there are a great many things I could have learned from him.

But I've found that to talk too much about movies is the kiss of death. If it happens then it happens, is all.

I'll know when the ideas aren't fresh anymore. And I'll know when writing doesn't give me a thrill anymore.

We've got one life and the older we get the more we come to realize how short it is.

But while our parting was mutually acceptable and even expedient, still it was painful. And I would like to think it hurt both of us, for I certainly felt it: a wrenching inside, like some small but improbably necessary organ was no longer in there, that it was missing, torn or fallen out. And at the time I'd thought that was the end of it; what was missing was gone forever

The amazing thing now is that most of those so-called critics who were telling me to find my own voice seem to have lost theirs.