I think people direct good films when they feel personal to them, not because it's a famous book or something. It has to something move over that and somehow become personal to the director.

In general, writers shouldn't be killed for what they write, though I can think of exceptions.

What I've always seen in writers and artists is the courage it takes to make an original work of art. I think the real risks in literature are linguistic and intellectual, and I hope we can highlight those, as well as political courage.

What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist.

The PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award is a way of spotlighting individual cases. If you look at the history of the award, the freedom rate is very high: a very high percentage of people who receive those awards are freed in the next six months to a year. The only weapon there is attention, but interestingly it works.

If you were standing next to the prophet on the mountain, would you have seen the archangel? And my answer to that was probably not, even though it's supposed to be a really big archangel. He describes it as - the Archangel Gabriel as standing on the horizon and filling the sky. That's a big angel.

In television, the 60-minute series, 'The Wire' and 'Mad Men' and so on, the writer is the primary creative artist.