Humour and high seriousness... Perfect bedfellows, I think. Though I usually phrase it in terms of comedy and darkness. Comedy without darkness rapidly becomes trivial. And darkness without comedy rapidly becomes unbearable.

Indeed, I am repeatedly astonished by the number of really good writers who understand human beings so well on paper but don't know how to deal with them in real life.

From a good book, I want to be taken to the very edge. I want a glimpse into that outer darkness.

Jane Austen was writing about boring people with desperately limited lives. We forget this because we've seen too many of her books on screen.

I do not like strangers because I do not like people I have never met before. They are hard to understand.

..because when we look up into the sky at night there will be no darkness, just the blazing light of billions and billions of stars, all falling.

I was born too late for steam trains and a lazy eye meant I'd never be an astronaut.