Physical violence is always a bore in films today. We don't see how much it hurts. We don't learn the true consequences of it.

I didn't read much of anything till I was 15, except Alistair MacLean and Michael Moorcock - the sword and sorcery novels - when I was about 13 or 14.

For me, those little cinemas in Paris where I saw many art films for the first time meant that cinema became a kind of pilgrimage site.

In terms of behaving in a civic way, I feel my behavior is always exemplary.

I do understand my limitations as a fiction writer, which is why my novels are always going to be close to home.

There's too much trash, too much violence and ultra-sexual activity without any sense of the consequences and that's bound to have an effect on society, ... I fear that the public may demand more regulation because they fear that our children and our country is being made more violent and more immoral by what's being seen.