We talked filth for a pleasant half hour.

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.

When you experience bereavement at a youngish age, you suddenly realise that life is unjust and unfair, that bad things will happen, and you have to take that on board.

In the broad spectrum of the arts, two worlds rarely overlap - the literary world and the world of rock music.

We talked filth for a pleasant half hour.

The last thing you know about yourself is your effect.

There's a sense in all my novels that nothing is certain.