It's possible to disagree with someone about the ethics of non-violence without wanting to kick his face in.

A great number of the disappointments and mishaps of the troubled world are the direct result of literature and the allied arts. It is our belief that no human being who devotes his life and energy to the manufacture of fantasies can be anything but fundamentally inadequate.

I'm ashamed to say the first play I saw at the Royal Court was mine.

I find I have to give myself a day when I just shut myself off and do nothing but read.

My problem is I'm a man of no convictions - at least, I think I am.

You know very well that unless you're a scientist, it's much more important for a theory to be shapely, than for it to be true.

Since my adaptation of Ian McEwan's 'Atonement,' I get sent a lot of novels that people think will work as movies. So every now and then I make a point of sitting down and reading a couple of them.