The great advantage of being a writer is that you can spy on people. You're there, listening to every word, but part of you is observing. Everything is useful to a writer, you see -- every scrap, even the longest and most boring of luncheon parties.

The great advantage of being a writer is that you can spy on people. You're there, listening to every word, but part of you is observing. Everything is useful to a writer, you see - every scrap, even the longest and most boring of luncheon parties.

I think a lot of unpublished writers feel the same way. They're not getting anywhere, and nobody's listening to them. You do get frustrated.

Nobody thinks in terms of human beings. Governments don't, why should we? They talk about people and the proletariat; I talk about the suckers and the mugs. It's the same thing.

I plowed myself into listening to about 98% of everything that was ever recorded in the past 20-odd years-I began to fall back in love with why I love David and Steven in the first place. It put us back in touch with what our strengths were, and it was a thrilling process.

People talk about the courage of condemned men walking to the place of execution: sometimes it needs as much courage to walk with any kind of bearing towards another person's habitual misery.