I really like the George Clooney of Solaris also filmed by Andrei Tarkovsky, before Steven Soderbergh: that's very obviously sci-fi, and it seems to me a great film. But whatever pigeon-hole you put Stalker into you would both be increasing the risk of disappointing people and diminishing the film.

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.

I like these nonfiction books where everything that is interesting about them is lost in that catch-all description of their "about"-ness.

One of the reasons so many nonfiction books are so boring is because what they've done, very diligently, is fulfill the terms of their proposals. They've written up their proposal, long-form, and often what this does is then set up a sort of serial deal, where the whole book can essentially be reduced back to the size of the original proposal!

Whatever people may say about my books - and it always amazes me when people don't like them, but sometimes they don't - the epigraphs have always been top-drawer. I think having that at the outset protects me from a lot of potential problems.

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

These days any self-respecting exhibition of nude photos has to have pornographically explicit images to prove that they are works of art.