I quickly, swiftly, reach in, pluck out, and peer into the mirror. ‘I am still here.’ I am in the glass, in this moment. After this moment, I may not be here; I may be...

In Hollywood, no one knows anything.

Once upon a time,” because the audience gets antsy.

But the thing I remember most about the screening in October twenty years ago was the moment Julian grasped my hand that had gone numb on the armrest separating our seats. He did this because...

Every writer dreams about the day they can step into their fiction and wander its hallways.

Hugh Laurie (playing Mr. Palmer) felt the line ‘Don’t palm all your abuses [of language upon me]’ was possibly too rude. ‘It’s in the book,’ I said. He didn’t hit me.

Some stories have to be written because no one would believe the absurdity of it all.

[Over breakfast] We discussed the ‘novelisation’ question. This is where the studio pay someone to novelise my script and sell it as Sense and Sensibility. I’ve said if this happens I will hang myself. Revolting...

Try everything; listen to everyone. Follow no one. You are your own story guru!

With the right tools, you can write anything …

Makebelieve is a writer’s best friend.

When I was ten all I knew was that I hated the weird words used to describe whatever it was that was wrong with my brother—to this day I think it all happened because he...

To be or not to be tethered to the sordid, sickly, stinking, sappy apron strings of Hollywood and its endless fondness for fu**ing your sh** up. If Shakespeare were alive today, I bet he’d write...