I've never seen anywhere in the world as beautiful as Kashmir. It has something to do with the fact that the valley is very small and the mountains are very big, so you have this miniature countryside surrounded by the Himalayas, and it's just spectacular. And it's true, the people are very beautiful too.

I don't think I've ever quite grown out of it, actually. There was a point where I could recite some of those Elvish verses - which I've mercifully forgotten. But I can still, if really pushed, recite the text of the inside of the ruling ring in the language of Mordor.

The novel does not seek to establish a privileged language but it insists upon the freedom to portray and analyze the struggle between the different contestants for such privileges.

I am clearly vulnerable to these more passionate and volatile unstable relationships. I am trying to not be so vulnerable.

When you're writing for the screen you're really thinking all the time of what you have to do to make sure that they have the information that they need, that the emotional thread is not snapped, that the story moves at the right speed, to keep the audience hopefully sitting on the edge of their seats or else weeping or laughing.

There are things you break that can't be put back together again. And Kashmir may be one of them.

If I were asked for a one-sentence sound bite on religion, I would say I was against it.