I could believe only in the hell I was living in, a hell on earth, and it was man-made, not God-made.

It's what I'll be singing in the morning. It won't be God Save the Ruddy King or All Things bleeding Bright and Beautiful. It'll be Orange and Lemons for Big Joe, for all of us.

Everyone is interested in war, in that people don't want it to happen. I'm much more interested in peace than in war but it's important to understand why we fight.

Like most writers, I sit in a room and scribble a story and you don't have a connection with the people who take your story, whether it be to the stage or to the screen.

I'm still not sure I want to be a writer. I think of myself as a storyteller more.

Always write your ideas down however silly or trivial they might seem. Keep a notebook with you at all times.

A lot of children, like I did, move away from words because of the fear - which is something you have to take out of education: the fear of worrying about what marks you'll get, detention, worrying about letting people down, your parents, teachers.