You need a great idea, but then you've got to carry it through. If you get it right, you're going to be a critical success. But not everyone who works hard gets it right, or has the success they deserve: there's an element of luck.

In real life, writers tend to be quite boring, but in our books, we're having exciting adventures all the time.

I don't have many friends. It's not because I'm a misanthrope. It's because I'm reserved. I'm self-contained. I get all my adventures in my head when I'm writing my books.

My father worked in a grocery store. When the grocery chain went into administration, he eventually got a job in the naval dockyard in an office preparing the charts for the boats and the submarines before they headed out.

Investment banking has, in recent years, resembled a casino, and the massive scale of gambling losses has dragged down traditional business and retail lending activities as banks try to rebuild their balance sheets. This was one aspect of modern financial liberalisation that had dire consequences.

Wealth is the ability to fully experience life.

Shoes for men are about elegance or wealth, they are not playing with the inner character. That is why women are happy to wear painful shoes.

I want to become actor not because I want money and become more famous. No I don't want that. It is not that l want stardom, I want to contribute to good cinema.