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" Football really felt like a private thing when I was in my teens because it wasn't on television, for a start, apart from 'Match of the Day.' "

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" At a crude estimate, I must have played 'Thunder Road' 1,500 times. "

" I used to go and see the Clash a fair bit. I did think they were dead cool, and very handsome. "

" All the Oscars stuff for 'An Education' was incredibly exciting, especially because it was such an underdog project - no one would give us the money for it, and we all nearly gave up because it wasn't getting anywhere, then suddenly a breakthrough and this really lovely film, which then took on a life of its own. "

" If you're reading a novel that was written in 1964, you'll find out more about 1964 than if you're reading a nonfiction book written in 1964 because you're hearing how language was actually used and hearing what people's actual concerns were at the beginning of the 1960s. "

" I think the things that are most intimate are nameless and shapeless. "

" It wasn't until 1963 that you would really want to listen to any kind of English music. "

" 'An Education' was a complicated piece of work because it came from a tiny essay, so it took me a while to find the story I wanted to tell and the characters I wanted to tell it about. That really only emerged after four or five drafts. "

" I don't want my books to exclude anyone, but if they have to, then I would rather they excluded the people who feel they are too smart for them! "

" Whether I am writing about a man or woman makes no difference in terms of difficulty. "

" I think firmly that art is no use to anyone unless it offers some kind of consolation or hope. "

" The most important thing for me is realism. I don't like writing which does somersaults on the page, and I'm no great fan of the hard work literary novel. "

" My relationships are fairly stable. "

" In a way, novel writing is such a permanently student lifestyle. When it comes to movies, and you have to go to these meetings and try and impress people and get money out of them, I feel as though I'm playacting at being somebody who's grown up. "

" It seems to me quite often that the journeys of young women are more moving because they are hemmed in more, and dramatically it's more interesting to think about and write about people whose lives are circumscribed in some way. "

" I can't stand it when writers moan about what film-makers might do or have done to their books. There's a very simple answer: don't take the money. "

" With movies, it always feels like such a long shot getting it made. "

" Lots of times when I'm offered things, I can't see how a story gets filmed. Either it's too internal or it doesn't have a strong spine. "

" I'm quite gloomy. I just am one of those people, vaguely lugubrious. "

" I used to be a teacher, and I know how difficult it is to strike a balance between focused conversation and an atmosphere which prevents creativity and thought. "

" Your failure to enjoy a highly rated novel doesn't mean you're dim - you may find that Graham Greene is more to your taste, or Stephen Hawking or Iris Murdoch or Ian Rankin. Dickens, Stephen King, whoever. "

" We need a romantic illusion to embark on relationships in the first place. After that, they survive or fail for other, more practical reasons. "

" Writing is about confidence and wondering what the point of anything is. "

" Sometimes when people are attached to a project, they need persuading to stay attached, and then, in retrospect, they're not the right person. "

" The writing in those HBO dramas, like 'The Wire,' is as good as anything I've seen. "

" A lot of what 'Funny Girl' is about, for me, is the experience feeling very happy doing a certain thing with a certain group of people. That partly came about because of having really positive experiences writing movies. "

" I only want to write books and movies about women. "

" The Internet's changed everything. There are no record stores to hang out in anymore. "

" We don't feel duty-bound to get all the way through a TV program. If we're not enjoying it, we turn over. Movies, we tend to give more of the benefit of the doubt because they're only 90 minutes or two hours. But books, there is this thing of, 'It's a book. I've got to finish it.' "

" I applied for a job on 'Melody Maker' once. "

" Words don't come very easily to me. Which, given my profession, is a worrying impediment. "