I'm the kind of person who embarks on an endless leapfrog down the great moral issues. I put a position, rebut it, refute the rebuttal and rebut the refutation. Endlessly.

I can put two and two together, you know. Do not think you are dealing with a man who has lost his grapes.

It's probably unprecedented for a filmmaker simply to take the writers' script and treat it as the instructions on the package. What really happens is you pretty much suppress your own instincts - and your own views on the matter - and write things the way filmmakers would like to have them, though the filmmakers often don't know what they want. They can only find out by reading what you do.

I was so thrilled being a reporter, because it gave you the kind of access to people that you wouldn't ever get to meet.

I really enjoy working on adaptations.

It's where we're nearest to our humanness. Useless knowledge for its own sake. Useful knowledge is good, too, but it's for the faint-hearted, an elaboration of the real thing, which is only to shine some light, it doesn't matter where on what, it's the light itself, against the darkness, it's what's left of God's purpose when you take away God.

I don't write at the library, because I smoke when I work or would like the possibility of a smoke. Also, I need to be at my own desk.