“...advancing through my schedule without volition, feeling more and more like the graphical lozenge on a media player's progress bar.”

“[Flaubert] didn’t just hate the railway as such; he hated the way it flattered people with the illusion of progress. What was the point of scientific advance without moral advance? The railway would merely permit more people to move about, meet and be stupid together.”

“I'm sitting in my office trying to squeeze a story from my head. It is that kind of morning when you feel like melting the typewriter into a bar of steel and clubbing yourself to death with it. (“Advance Notice”)”

“I don't know anything any more," he said, and let a sleep lozenge dissolve on his tongue”

“What was the point of scientific advance without moral advance? The railway would merely permit more people to move about, meet and be stupid together”

“A film is - or should be - more like music than like fiction. It should be a progression of moods and feelings. The theme, what's behind the emotion, the meaning, all that comes later.”