Characters are the key to a good book. It took me several novels to comprehend that.

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.

I can hate you more, but I'll never love you less.

Unless you can be in a place yourself and go through the subject of your story yourself, the next best thing is not to read a book about it, or see a movie about it, it's to talk to the people who've been there.

Any story you write about war, or film you make about war, is bound to be political whether you like it or not.

But I didn’t dare. That has always been my trouble. I’ve never dared enough.

I don't want to be separate from something that's important to me.