I think that the biggest, quickest and hardest thing to learn for a writer is that what we think of as the unchanging verities of story are a load of bollocks. Absolute rubbish. There are no unchanging verities.

America was, to them, the place that good people went to when they died. They were prepared to believe just about anything could happen in America.

Peas baffled me. I could not understand why grown-ups would take things that tasted so good raw, and then put them in tins, and make them revolting.

The Doctor: Sorry, do you have a name? Idris: Seven hundred years and finally he asks. The Doctor: But what do I call you? Idris: I think you call me... Sexy? The Doctor: [embarrassed] Only when we're alone. Idris: We are alone. The Doctor: Oh. Come on then, Sexy.

I loved writing a book in which, in some ways, it's very, very classical, and in some ways I'm breaking lots of rules about what you can do and what you can't do.

I'm willing to make a fool out of myself in public. I'm also willing to make those mistakes that you're going to make the first time you go out, so hopefully the next time it will be better.

When you love something you just don't want to stop talking about it.