When I first came to London, I loved hanging around in cafes, smoking, scribbling, dreaming. It was life-affirming and fun.

There is no such thing as too much swearing. Swearing is just a piece of linguistic mechanics. The words in-between are the clever ones.

I'm not an extravagant man. The fact that I can have a coffee out whenever I want still makes me feel grateful.

Real heroes are all around us and uncelebrated.

I was just interested in directing. So I just kept having a go at trying to write little scripts and get things together, and my wife just had a slip of the tongue and said, "Franz Kafka's It's A Wonderful Life" when she meant to say "Frank Capra's." There it is right there. That's a gag that we could make into something.

I suppose I just like being arty. That's all. Arty.

The older I get, the more I think lightness of touch is an incredibly difficult thing to do.