I don't like my books being defined by their "about"-ness. So now the subtitle has just become a kind of strap-line on the cover.

If you help them (the crew) create good memories, they'll forget all the bad stuff

There's something about New York. You can get a nice feeling of belonging as a writer here. It's probably the best city on Earth like that. I miss the wisecracking of New York.

I would agree on the aging thing. Because, at a certain point, once you start noticing it, it is your subject. And I know young that people, when they get to 30, say, "Oh, I'm so old." But actually, around 50, you do become conscious of it.

Nine times out of 10, the most charming thing to say in any given situation will be the exact opposite of what one really feels.

If the regular length of a shot is increased, one becomes bored, but if you keep on making it longer, a new quality emerges, a special intensity of attention.' At first there can be a friction between our expectations of time and Tarkovsky-time and this friction is increasing in the twenty-first century as we move further and further away from Tarkovsky-time towards moron-time in which nothing can last—and no one can concentrate on anything—for longer than about two seconds.

Like most writers I spend a lot of my time sort of thinking, "It's such agony, I can't do it."