Films have gotten leaner and leaner, cutting out all variations from the story line.

My conception of it was that in a normal film you have a story with different movements that program, develop, go a little bit off the trunk, come back, and end.

I just got back from New York, and I realized in New York, it's very difficult to hear a New York accent. It's almost impossible, actually - everybody seems to speak like they're from the Valley or something. When I grew up, you could tell what street in Dublin someone's from by the way they talked.

It's the same thing in a way, although writing a book is a very solitary thing.

I hoped that grief was similar to the other emotions. That it would end, the way happiness did. Or laughter.

I can't do a film if I don't start with the writing.

Well, if you're talking about the current climate, there's a lack of content in American film because I think people are deeply confused about their emotions, and they don't regret certain aspects of their own foreign policy.