“When you have a good romance, find ways to make their lives miserable and hellish...Do you think 'Titanic' would have been so popular if they had both lived? Not a prayer.”

“To think the way you do, you have to be a man who lives either on a tremendous despair, or on a tremendous hope.On both perhaps.”

“When I was young - really young - I used to think that the kids who had money, who were popular at school and who did well at things must have had horrible home lives - abusive parents or nasty siblings or lived in cupboard under stairs.It’s kind of sick when you think about it, but what I figured was that life should be fair - everyone had to have good and bad things in their lives, and no one could have a wholly good life or a wholly bad life because that would upset the balance of things.I know now that I was wrong.”

“She knew that was not an honest prayer, and she did not linger over it. The right prayer would have been, Lord . . . I am miserable and bitter at heart, and old fears are rising up in me so that everything I do makes everything worse.”

“I think most places can be interesting to live in if you find a way to make them so.”

“No, that's not it, no matter what they do, you'll still be in their hearts forever. Are you afraid that when you die people will have to forget you so they would have to live their lives normally?”