An awful lot of storytelling isn't really about making people understand - it's about making people care.

I can say with pride verging on smugness that I've got two very successful shows that assume their audience is very smart.

The Doctor: This is bad, I don't like this. [kicks console and yells in pain] Never use force, you just embarrass yourself. Unless you're cross, in which case... always use force! Amy: Shall I run and get the manual? The Doctor: I threw it in a supernova. Amy: You threw the manual in a supernova? Why? The Doctor: Because I disagreed with it! Now stop talking to me when I'm cross!

Sherlock Holmes can be wise and funny. He wasn't, at the beginning. But later on, he's got a bantering relationship with loads of people. He's got a wisdom that he didn't have in the early stage. But he stays on the mountain top, and he will die up there. He's not going to change that.

I stole your childhood and now I’ve led you by the hand to your death. But the worst thing is, I knew. I knew this would happen. This is what always happens. Forget your faith in me. I took you with me because I was vain. Because I wanted to be adored. Look at you. Glorious Pond, the girl who waited for me. I’m not a hero. I really am just a mad man in a box. And it’s time we saw each other as we really are. Amy Williams, it’s time to stop waiting.

It's a TV show. Only the emotional damage is real.

My problem is that the audience is more fiction-literate than ever. In Shakespeare's day, you probably expected to see a play once or twice in your life; today you experience four or five different kinds of fiction every day. So staying ahead of the audience is impossible.