I think probably everybody works most on the beginning and the ending.

The novel may be dead as a commercial form. When art forms things die as commercial forms, something happens to the practice of those arts that isn't very pleasant. It used to be that a poet like Tennyson could keep his house and his coach-and-four and his staff of six servants on the income from poetry. That doesn't happen anymore.

Most films go out like skydivers who have had their chutes packed by a committee of blind schizophrenics.

Because you're running an enterprise with two hundred-odd people, and it's really your responsibility to keep it moving quickly. So you have to know what you're doing, do it, and move on.

I sound like Warhol but only because I'm tired.

The era I love most is the Federal period, just after the Revolution and the formation of the United States. The birth of America as a nation coincided with the Romantic era and I've always been thoroughly into the Romantics and I've always been thoroughly into America, particularly at the time when it was a brand new idea, when it was something brand new in the world. It was a very exciting time in the world because of the birth of America

The empirical is very important, but merit is inherent and not acquired. A university is massively important because you can see where you stand naturally in the ranks, and try yourself out, but education is just reading and understanding what you read.