There are so many other people involved in the making of a play or a television series or whatever... even if you're a novelist there's so much in just the marketing of a book, or even the time... the zeitgeist, the moment at which it comes out. There's a lot you can't control.

The minute you become a leader of a country, you go into a very small club. You join that sort of pantheon of other world leaders.

It's really a lovely feeling to write knowing that failure is taken off the table because if it's bad you just never show it to anyone.

If you have distance from the events, then your story can work as an analogy or parable, rather than its literal narrative.

I never go back over something I've done and I never watch them again.

I am not a politics wonk. I like the idea of my writing reflecting more about who I am or other people.

I'm always pre-occupied with what it is that I'm doing at the moment.