You're working with other people and sometimes it doesn't work out the way you want, and sometimes you didn't realise what a mistake you've made until you see it projected.

You don't really work together with Clint Eastwood. I mean, he takes the script and he shoots it - and he shoots it very faithfully.

Firms are a bit concerned about things like oil prices and US growth but actually the change (in firms expectations) is quite small so I think broadly theyre looking for more of the same.

The thing that I'm most in love with is the thing that I'm writing at the moment.

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?

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