Love isn't about when you first meet. It's about the many, many years you spend together, when you're trying to keep that flame burning.

You need to remember that. If you’re to have decent lives, you have to know who you are and what lies ahead of you, every one of you.

When I see films made from books, I make a huge effort not to remember the book. It's important to see the film as a film.

Love isn't about when you first meet. It's about the many, many years you spend together, when you're trying to keep that flame burning.

If you were a boy and a girl and you were in love with each other, really, properly in love, and if you could show it, then the people who run Hailsham, they sorted it out for you. They sorted it out so you could have a few years together before you began your donations.

The reason I wouldn't dare to write a Western is simply because that seems to be so much a part of American culture. Maybe if I want to write a Western enough I should try to overcome that fear, but I'll certainly feel like I'm trespassing. I feel that that is so much a part of American foundation myth, it's part of the myth of America, the American vision of what America is, which people have glorified and then challenged and then vilified.

I think the judging process is full of integrity, compared to some other prizes around the world. The fact that they change the panel of judges every year keeps it from becoming corrupt. I think it's very difficult if you've got judges for life; obviously relationships are cultivated between judges and authors, and publishing houses.