Wars are fought by children. Conceived by their mad demonic elders, and fought by boys.

I've always been fascinated by the operation of memory - the way in which it is not linear but fragmented, and its ambivalence.

We make choices but are constantly foiled by happenstance.

I'm not a historian but I can get interested - obsessively interested - with any aspect of the past, whether it's palaeontology or archaeology or the very recent past.

It seems to me that anyone whose library consists of a Kindle lying on a table is some sort of bloodless nerd.

The present hardly exists, after all-it becomes the past even as it happens. A tricky medium, time - and central to the concerns of fiction.

We all act as hinges-fortuitous links between other people.

The consideration of change over the century is about loss, though I think that social change is gain rather than loss.

We all need a past - that's where our sense of identity comes from.

Getting to know someone else involves curiosity about where they have come from, who they are.

The Photograph is concerned with the power that the past has to interfere with the present: the time bomb in the cupboard.

I want people to emphasize life before death as opposed to life after death.

There's a certain kind of lonely man who rejects love, because he believes that anyone who offers it wouldn't be a lover worth having.

Build a house?" exclaimed John. "For the Wendy," said Curly. "For Wendy?" John said, aghast. "Why, she is only a girl!" "That," explained Curly, "is why we are her servants.

I prefer to remain mysterious and have people MAKE their own judgment calls about me than to always have to EXPLAIN who I am and what I’m about.

If you must run, have something to run toward, so it feels less like cowardice.

There was a lot of pressure on me as a filmmaker to raise the bar and do better than before so, you know, I put a lot of thought and energy, that's for sure.

She makes my old pick-up truck feel like a limousine.

You don't bring me anything but down.

Acting is all I know; being on a set is all I know.

False-dealing travels a short road, and surely detected.