Every writer has to make an emotional journey from artist sitting in attic to being part of a business. The writer of a film is like Tinkerbell. You are only there because people believe in you. The moment they dont, because youre a pain the arse, youve lost.

People tend to view history as if it were another planet and think the modern world was invented in 1963. I don't agree.

Vulgarity is no substitute for wit.

It's the gloomy things that need our help, if everything in the garden is sunny, why meddle?

My own belief is that most people are trying to do their best. It doesn't mean they have no nasty side, or that they don't have a bad temper, or that they have never done anything they feel ashamed of. But fiction operates on people waking up trying to be horrible, and I don't think most people are trying to be horrible.

Leave three Englishmen in a room and they will invent a rule that prevents a fourth joining them.

I think I have a very detailed sense of observation. I am interested in the details of people's lives and what information these details give.