As for critics, one mediocre writer is more valuable than ten good critics. They are like haughty, barren spinsters lodged in a maternity ward.

We all live to a formula. Maybe the secret lies in keeping that formula secret.

My second Christian name is John. Good solid bourgeois Christian name, like my first name, Peter, a rock. Minerals. Build on rock, rocks, uranium. Peter and John were two of the twelve apostles - arguable the two most significant. Were my parents hedging their bets?

Cinema is not a playground for Sharon Stone.

I want to regard my public as infinitely intelligent, as understanding notions of the suspension of disbelief and as realising all the time that this is not a slice of life, this is openly a film.

Since Caesar, we know his historians are liars. The good writers get read. Bad history doesn't get read.

The Sistine Chapel is an extraordinary work of education - it lays out all the early books of the Bible.