I'm a very, very unreckless person. I mean, I look left, I look right, I look left, I look right, then I repeat the process and then I decide not to cross the road at the last minute.

I like extremely effeminate dogs like terriers or schnauzers. I make an exception for giant schnauzers and big poodles. Basically, I like dogs which can be dyed day-glo colours.

You always have to find something to say about the subject and in seven cases out of ten there is nothing to say.

I'm not against architecture per se, I'm just against bad architecture.

I like looking at the countryside as well as anyone... a little countryside goes a long way, but it's almost like the DNA of a civilisation is in its cities.

I think television is a medium which has the potential to do great things but has been traduced by these... terrible people who rise through the ranks.

I genuinely find it difficult to think of places that I'd never want to see again. It might be because part of my career has been concerned with writing about topography.

The only bright feature of cultural relativism's triumph is that it has become establishment orthodoxy and will thus one day be derided, resisted and overthrown.

I do make myself be interested in places in a way that I don't make myself be interested in people.

When I started writing fiction it always seemed in retrospect (I didn't realise at the time) that it was always caused by environments rather than by incidents and characters.

If you have slightly pathological interest in all the components of places, it forces you to engage with them in a way that perhaps otherwise you wouldn't, and that's the only way I can put it.

One thing hatred can do very well is to attack what it hates!

Everything can be taken from a man but one thing - the ability to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances.

Trust me, I play the game for the fans, my family and myself.

Because I thought I was in love. And when you think you're in love, you are willing to stick it out and make it work until it is love.

A man who wants to make a relationship work will move mountains to keep the woman he loves

You know how the press is: If I mention one mistake, that's the only thing that bothers me unless I mention all the other ones.

I always find it particularly difficult to work in New York because there are so many things to do.

Fantasy is hard to do when it comes to making it look good compared to something that's a documentary or hyper-realism.

Narrative is linear, but action has breadth and depth as well as height and is solid.

If you ask me, you see, I prefer doing film. The reason I'm doing a sitcom is because it's much more approachable.