My plays are always pushing towards cinema anyway. They're down and dirty, real and more fun.

Dublin people think they are the center of the world and the center of Ireland. And they don't realize that people have to leave Ireland to get work, and they look down on people who do.

I think if you're writing a play, it should be its own end game; you'll never get to do a good one unless you know it's not a blueprint for a film; you're not going to get the action right and the story right.

I suppose I walk that line between comedy and cruelty because I think one illuminates the other. We're all cruel, aren't we? We are all extreme in one way or another at times and that's what drama, since the Greeks, has dealt with. I hope the overall view isn't just that though, or I've failed in my writing. There have to be moments when you glimpse something decent, something life-affirming even in the most twisted character. That's where the real art lies.

'Pulp Fiction' is an amazing film, and I haven't made one nearly as good.

I don't feel I have to defend myself for being English or for being Irish, because, in a way, I don't feel either. And, in another way, of course, I'm both.

It doesn't feel like you're preaching, if you can say something in a joke.