The unpredictable and the predetermined unfold together to make everything the way it is.

Hotel rooms inhabit a separate moral universe.

I write scenes - often quite long scenes - mainly because I still get seduced into writing six lines where one and a half will do.

Because children grow up, we think a child's purpose is to grow up. But a child's purpose is to be a child. Nature doesn't disdain what lives only for a day. It pours the whole of itself into the each moment. We don't value the lily less for not being made of flint and built to last.

ROS: Why don't you go and have a look? GUIL: Pragmatism?! - is that all you have to offer?

I've lost all capacity for disbelief. I'm not sure that I could even rise to a little gentle scepticism.

The truth is, we value your company, for want of any other. We have been left so much to our own devices—after a while one welcomes the uncertainty of being left to other people's.