I can't relax when I'm watching a biographical drama, because it's so close to what it is that I do that I just long for more fiction - so that I can switch off.

The minute you become a leader of a country, you go into a very small club. You join that sort of pantheon of other world leaders.

If you have distance from the events, then your story can work as an analogy or parable, rather than its literal narrative.

To what degree are historians chroniclers of the truth and to what degree are they just novelists, frankly?

Firms are a bit concerned about things like oil prices and US growth but actually the change (in firms expectations) is quite small so I think broadly theyre looking for more of the same.

I wrote 'Hereafter' quickly and without mapping it out too much or being too schematic. As an exercise, I think that was incredibly important.

Generally, I read nonfiction. Theres very little fiction that I enjoy enough to spend my time reading. I am generally a nonfiction guy.

Movies feel like work, and reading fiction feels like work, whereas reading nonfiction feels like pleasure.

I just try and do something good. But as a writer, you're slightly out of control.

I am not a politics wonk. I like the idea of my writing reflecting more about who I am or other people.

The real beauty in my professional experience has been friendships and collaborations with filmmakers.

This is one reason people need to believe in God—because we want someone to know us, truly, all the way through, even the worst of us.

So the American government lied to the Native Americans for many, many years, and then President Clinton lied about a relationship, and everyone was surprised! A little naive, I feel!

Once Ptolemy and Plato, yesterday Newton, today Einstein, and tomorrow new faiths, new beliefs, and new dimensions.

I sometimes wonder what it would be like to be the respected patriarch of an ordinary English family." "Very boring, Emerson.

No single, individual moment is in and of itself unendurable.

It is possible, you know, to drift off to an unknown world and find happiness there. Maybe even more happiness than you've ever known before.

Many new years you may see, but happy ones you cannot see without deserving them. These virtue, honor, and knowledge alone can merit, alone can produce.

Creating music, visual art, producing music and film are always at the forefront of my life.

We're finding [texting] 11 times more powerful than email [for communicating with kids].

A man is sane only to the extent that he subscribes to a previously-agreed construction of reality.