We give each other a wide berth even if we have the flu, let alone... So, I think that's part of the stigma that people who have diseases suffer. It's almost infectious... if somebody is closer to death, they're almost a bad omen and I think that's terrible.

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.

To what degree are historians chroniclers of the truth and to what degree are they just novelists, frankly?

When you make a choice as a writer about what it is you want to write, and what it is you're going to spend six months thinking about, you have to fall in love.

I can't relax when I'm watching a biographical drama, because it's so close to what it is that I do that I just long for more fiction - so that I can switch off.

The real beauty in my professional experience has been friendships and collaborations with filmmakers.

I wrote 'Hereafter' quickly and without mapping it out too much or being too schematic. As an exercise, I think that was incredibly important.