James Joyce - an essentially private man who wished his total indifference to public notice to be universally recognized.

It's no trick loving somebody at their best. Love is loving them at their worst.

The trouble is, I can't find a part of myself where you're not important. I write in order to be worth your while and to finance the way I want to live with you. Not the way you want to live. The way I want to live with you. Without you I wouldn't care. I'd eat tinned spaghetti and put on yesterday's clothes. But as it is I change my socks, and make money, and tart up Brodie's unspeakable drivel into speakable drivel so he can be an author too, like me.

We drift down time, clutching at straws. But what good's a brick to a drowning man?

It's not the voting that's democracy; it's the counting.

I consider myself to be a very fortunate person and to have led a very fortunate life.

Rewriting isn't just about dialogue, it's the order of the scenes, how you finish a scene, how you get into a scene. All these final decisions are best made when you're there, watching. It's really enjoyable, but you've got to be there at the director's invitation. You can't just barge in and say, "I'm the writer."