I think people direct good films when they feel personal to them, not because it’s a famous book or something. It has to something move over that and somehow become personal to the director.
It’s one thing to say, ‘I don’t like what you said to me and I find it rude and offensive,’ but the moment you threaten violence in return, you’ve taken it to another level, where you lose whatever credibility you had.
Like everybody else, I’ve had relationships in which I was passionately in love but was completely miserable all the time and didn’t trust the person I was in love with one inch.
Sometimes I think that when people become famous, there’s a public perception that they are not human beings any more. They don’t have feelings; they don’t get hurt; you can act and say as you like about them.
I didn’t become a writer to write about me.
The great concern is that year after year, rising numbers of journalists are being killed in pursuit of their work. They are increasingly seen as not being neutral but rather as combatants by one side or the other.
I think the book is less emotional than the film. With the film, the emotions are much more raw and in front. In the book, they are kind of ironized and seen through comedy.
Things, even people have a way of leaking into each other like flavours when you cook.
Don’t you know girls have to fool people every day of their lives if they want to get anywhere?
I discovered that if you find the language to talk to younger readers, children can accept anything.
A mature society understands that at the heart of democracy is argument.
A man is sane only to the extent that he subscribes to a previously-agreed construction of reality.
Be sure that you go to the author to get at his meaning, not to find yours.
In the experience of art, time seems not to exist. When I’m writing and think, “I’ve been working for two hours,” I’ve actually been working for seven.
Before I came to England, my favorite authors were P. G. Wodehouse and Agatha Christie. I used to devour both.
Bin Laden was born filthy rich and died in a rich man’s house, which he had painstakingly built to the highest specifications.
Broad-mindedness is related to tolerance; open-mindedness is the sibling of peace.
Certainly, the Hollywood cinema, there’s almost nothing of interest coming out of there.
I beat my sons in real-life table tennis, but virtually, I get murdered. I download games on the iPhone that I’m addicted to – I’m a master at “Angry Birds.”
Children like being a little scared, but they don’t want to be disturbed.