“I think there is a huge difference between writers who have very big sales, and writers who have small sales. Even writers with very high reputations, even Nobel prize winners, often sell in very low figures.”

I like the fact that by mimicking the way memory works, a writer can actually write in a fluid way – one solid scene doesn’t have to fall on another solid scene, you can just have a fragment that then dovetails into another one that took place 30 years apart from it.

What is pertinent is the calmness of beauty, its sense of restraint. It is as though the land knows of its own beauty, its own greatness, and feels no need to shout it.

Indeed — why should I not admit it? — in that moment, my heart was breaking.

There was another life that I might have had, but I am having this one.

Memory is quite central for me. Part of it is that I like the actual texture of writing through memory.

I really have to think of the things fiction can do that film can’t and play to the strengths of the novel. With a novel you can get right inside somebody’s head.

My friends and I took songwriting very, very seriously. My hero was and still is Bob Dylan, but also people like Leonard Cohen and Joni Mitchell and that whole generation.

There are things I am more interested in than the clone thing. How are they trying to find their place in the world and make sense of their lives? To what extent can they transcend their fate? As time starts to run out, what are the things that really matter?

We took away your art because we thought it would reveal your souls. Or to put it more finely, we did it to prove you had souls at all.

Love isn’t about when you first meet. It’s about the many, many years you spend together, when you’re trying to keep that flame burning.

I started as a songwriter and wanted to be like Leonard Cohen. I’ve always seen my stories as enlarged songs.

I try to always go for something very interior, following thoughts and memories, something that I think is difficult to do on the screen, which is essentially a third-person medium.

And if these incidents now seem full of significance and all of a piece, it’s probably because I’m looking at them in the light of what came later.

I have the feeling of this completely alternative person I should have become. There was another life that I might have had, but I’m having this one.

We all live inside bodies that will deteriorate. But when you look at human beings, they’re capable of very decent things: love, loyalty. When time is running out, they don’t care about possessions or status. They want to put things right if they’ve done wrong.

It is one of the enjoyments of retirement that you are able to drift through the day at your own pace, easy in the knowledge that you have put hard work and achievement behind you.

There is great difference between trust and belief. Trust is personal, Belief is social.

The most meaningful way to differentiate your company from your competition, is to do an outstanding job with information.

Some people spend an entire lifetime wondering if they made a difference in the world. But, the Marines don’t have that problem.

In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is.

Small changes, such as thrifting instead of buying new, supporting sustainable brands, and air-drying your clothes, can make a huge difference.

The difference between a democracy and a dictatorship is that in a democracy you vote first and take orders later; in a dictatorship you don’t have to waste your time voting.

A little Consideration, a little Thought for Others, makes all the difference.

It’s not too late for us to make a difference.