The last thing we ever learn about ourselves is our effect.

We talked filth for a pleasant half hour.

I don't think they'll ever make a retro Bond.

It's true: lives do drift apart for no obvious reason. We're all busy people,we can't spend our time simply trying to stay in touch. The test of a friendship is if it can weather these inevitable gaps.

Writing a film - more precisely, adapting a book into a film - is basically a relentless series of compromises. The skill, the "art," is to make those compromises both artistically valid and essentially your own. . . . It has been said before but is worth reiterating: writing a novel is like swimming in the sea; writing a film is like swimming in the bath.

My novels are often about people who are in love or attracted to each other.

In some ways, you could argue, television is doing far more interesting work than the movies. It's more fulfilling.