Dignity was the first quality to be abandoned when the heart took over the running of human affairs..

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

I have teken refuge in the doctrine that advises one not to seek tranquility in certainty but in permanently suspended judgement..

To live as an artist requires hard work or some extraordinary good fortune to come your way..

I have to start my real life soon, before I die of boredom and frustration..

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

She's half mad and three parts drunk..

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 thos….

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 g….

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 ….

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

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 fr….

Is that a good definition of marking the ageing watershed? That moment when you realize - quite rationally, quite unemotionally - that the world in t….

It's amazing how sudden the effect is - it must be the result of a deep atavistic mating urge buried inside us. A glance and you think: 'Yes, this is….

With film, you have very limited tools to convey subjectivity - voiceover, the camera's point of view, good acting - but even the very best actor in ….

When it's mutual, a man and a woman know, instinctively, wordlessly. They may do nothing about it, but the knowledge of that shared desire is out the….

I stood there in the kitchen, watching her staring across the meadow still searching for her nemesis and I thought, suddenly, that this is all our li….

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

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

We never love anyone. Not really. We only love our idea of another person. It is some conception of our own that we love. We love ourselves, in fact..

The last thing you know about yourself is your effect..