I've worked in television long enough to know that when you stop enjoying that type of thing you go home and do something else.

Show me the artist anywhere who's had an utterly stable mental life, and I'll buy you hot dinners for the rest of your life.

I don't remember deciding to become a writer. You decide to become a dentist or a postman. For me, writing is like being gay. You finally admit that this is who you are, you come out and hope that no one runs away.

All the other children at my school are stupid. Except I'm not meant to call them stupid, even though this is what they are.

You make a film you feel is as real as possible and hope people react as though it were real.

I've worked in television long enough to know that when you stop enjoying that type of thing you go home and do something else.

As to the number of novels I've abandoned... I shudder to think. I have thrown away five completed novels, and that's a gruesome enough figure. But not necessarily a waste of effort.