Film is a medium of clear lines and broad strikes - which can be fantastic - but compared to the subtleties and nuances of a novel, it doesn't even get close.

Sometimes limbo is a tolerable place to be stuck.

There are things in life we don't understand, and when we meet them, all we can do is let them alone.

Is that a good definition of marking the ageing watershed? That moment when you realize - quite rationally, quite unemotionally - that the world in the not-so-distant future will not contain you: that the trees you planted will continue growing but you will not be there to see them.

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.

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

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