I had no expectation that the Prince would offer me the unprecedented and unfettered access to the original and entirely untapped sources on which this biography is based.
How can a rational being be ennobled by any thing that is not obtained by its own exertions?
When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.
As a rule, said Holmes, the more bizarre a thing is the less mysterious it proves to be. It is your commonplace, featureless crimes which are really puzzling, just as a commonplace face is the most difficult to identify.
I'm a documentary filmmaker by training. You got to start with the real people and the real place.
I love Westerns. They're a unique creation of American mythology.
I hate flying. My stomach churns at the mere thought of it.
Make women rational creatures, and free citizens, and they will quickly become good wives; - that is, if men do not neglect the duties of husbands and fathers.
To some degree Satanism is purely a kind of disease of Christianity. You've got to really be Christian to believe in Satan.
I try to go to the gym three times a week, and I swim, too.
'Malice' wasn't about horror to start with but an underground comic driven by the power of rumour. However, as nothing fuels a rumour like fear, I decided that it had to be a frightening comic.
The vast majority of terrestrial species are in fact microbes, and scientists have only begun scratching the surface of the microbial realm. It is entirely possible that examples of life as we don't know it have so far been overlooked.
In real terms, there is a greater disparity of earnings between the very rich and the very poor.
I had still never read one of the Bond books when the movie Dr. No came out.
All I really wanted to do was wildlife photography.
I am never not thinking about stories. 'The Bone Season' is 90% of my brain - 10% is interacting with the rest of the world.
I've done my share of period stuff. I'm not sure why, but people say I have a period face. The bread and butter of British TV is Jane Austen adaptations and bridges and bonnets and boats and horses.
In both word and deed, one of the greatest idlers of all time was John Lennon. In his songs we see repeated defences of simply lying around doing nothing.
I wanted readers to be genuinely unsure as to whether she's telling the truth or lying. It meant making her partly sympathetic, and partly unsympathetic, which wasn't easy.
We should like to have some towering geniuses, to reveal us to ourselves in colour and fire, but of course they would have to fit into the pattern of our society and be able to take orders from sound administrative types.
I'm trying to die correctly, but it's very difficult, you know.
My mind rebels at stagnation. Give me problems, give me work, give me the most abstruse cryptogram, or the most intricate analysis, and I am in my own proper atmosphere. But I abhor the dull routine of existence. I crave for mental exaltation.
As a writer, I always try as hard as possible to get out of the way of the story, so maybe that's the most important thing my readers should know - I'm all about the story, not about the ego.
Telling the truth to people who misunderstand you is generally promoting a falsehood, isn't it?
Everywhere I go I see increasing evidence of people swirling about in a human cesspit of their own making.
It was just us lampooning our own peer group, saying, well hey, where did this stuff come from? And where does British guys get to be so good at it suddenly?
Like its politicians and its war, society has the teenagers it deserves.
An awful lot of people think it's easy to lift recipes out.
Certainly, my many years working in the comics industry, creating products that I do not own, has made me rather fierce on the subject of giving up rights.
Sexual relations, of course, have existed, exist, and will exist. However, this is in no way connected with the indispensability of the existence of the family.
I'd say 'Codename Baboushka' has been a slightly more difficult process for me, but I think that's precisely because it's quite different to my usual fare. And even then, being difficult doesn't make me prefer it, or not, to anything else. I like a challenge.
I adore Madonna. She reinvents herself like no one else.
My attention is constantly being caught! I'm constantly learning, constantly becoming fascinated by new things - I'm lucky that I read incredibly quickly and absorb a lot of information easily, because otherwise I don't think I'd ever get my head out of a book!
Any truth is better than indefinite doubt.
How extraordinary it is that one feels most guilt about the sins one is unable to commit.
I always felt that sci-fi and fantasy were my thing. Bit of a geek, I'm afraid. But I like creating worlds, and I felt it was a genre that gave me more freedom. It just seemed like I belonged there.