Movies feel like work, and reading fiction feels like work, whereas reading nonfiction feels like pleasure.

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

Sometimes you are lucky enough to get offered things and there is no rhyme or reason.

If you're growing up in times of peace and live in a country where there's plenty of food and good healthcare, you grow up without any relationship with death.

I don't want to direct. I have no directing ambition whatsoever. And as long as I meet filmmakers like Tom Hooper, Stephen Frears, and others who allow that collaboration, I can't see why I would ever want to direct.

I give everything my best shot and sometimes it doesn't work out and other times it works out much better than you thought.

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