“I’m not from a particularly sci-fi background. I’m not anti sci-fi at all, but I’ve never been known as a sci-fi writer and, suddenly, I was creating a flagship BBC sci-fi show, which is terrifying sometimes.”

Sci-fi is very much an American genre. Space and the exploration of space is something so closely associated with America.

I’m not into politics. I’m into survival.

The stronger a brand’s point of view, the greater its voltage.

The best content is the means, not the end.

I was a novelist before I was a TV screenwriter. Actually, as a kid, I think I’d always wanted to be a writer, but never thought that I would be one.

Just because there’s a trillion places to put an idea doesn’t mean you don’t need an idea in the first place

I wrote about the life of a housing officer in Britain, in a pretty rough area of London. Maybe it was because I’m a big-mouth and an exhibitionist, and I’m slightly egotistical. All those things have to come together for a writer.

I have had national security background, 10 years on the Intelligence Committee, the last two years as chair.

When I started I didn’t know anything about music. I came from an absolutely non-musical, non-artistic background.

The quietest are often working-class people, people who are broke. There is a fear of losing whatever it is that you have. I come from that background.

That’s more important even then what their background is or what they’ve done before, how good they are, how new they are or whatever. All that stuff is really secondary to just getting along with the person.

It’s against type in the sense of my background, but it’s with type in the sense that I am a loner who’s new to this business and sceptical about a lot of it.

I was quite a shy child – not chronically, but I tended to blend into the background.

I feel really passionately about safe, comfortable roads, crosswalks, and sidewalks. Everyone of all economic backgrounds should be able to get to school or the grocery store safely and efficiently so they can live better lives.

Children are game for anything. I throw them hard words, and they backhand them over the net. They love words that give them a hard time, provided they are in a context that absorbs their attention.