I wanted to portray very, very dark subject matter and a deceptively complex story in the brightest colours and simplest lines possible to leave the readers reeling.

Leaders don't ever "arrive." If we ever think we're done, we are done!

When you don't have time to do your job, that's a good indication you're playing the wrong game.

She was like John Rambo meets Polly Pocket; Dakota Fanning crossed with Death Wish 4.

What I wanted to do was drown something enormous, like a Star Trek or Star Wars kind of space opera-type thing, but actually make it about someone who was just married to the wrong guy, and that guy just happens to be this amazing dictator, and she has to get her kids as far away as possible from this guy. So something that could almost be a TV movie, if you'd ground it and set it in Wisconsin or something like that, but to give it this enormous setting.

I think exactly the same qualities as men [women role model needs], exactly the same, which is kindness, courage and intelligence.

Your capacity to grow determines your capacity to lead.