Writing is a kind of performing art, and I can't sit down to write unless I'm dressed. I don't mean dressed in a suit, but dressed well and comfortably and I have to be shaved and bathed.

If you can't do something willingly and joyfully, then don't do it.

I tell my children to avoid theatre and go into cinema and TV.

There is a legend. And to protest is daft.

And maddest of all, to see life as it is and not as it should be.

You talk about auteur de cinema having things in their heads and putting them all across, can you imagine Shakespeare writing screenplays?

We were doing it under the most extraordinary circumstances, but the first out of the tent in the morning would be David Lean. He said to me on the very first day of shooting, Pete, this is the beginning of a great adventure.