People sometimes seem surprised because often, you know, you know, there's a lot of tortured characters in the stuff I write.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I don't know why, but I respond well to tortured characters.
It makes me actually quite angry to think about people writing about torture with a sort of relish. Horrible.
The idea that every time you do a film you're supposed to be tortured confuses me. I mean, guys who say, 'Oh, it's really tough, my character is really suffering' -come on. For us, even in the rotten ones we've had a good time. I don't think you have to suffer.
I guess I feel so tortured most of the time, when I see someone else feeling tortured, I get a little perverse glee out of it.
I don't fall into the category of tortured artist. But it's not made me more or less anything.
Everyone is tortured. Do you know anyone who isn't?
I know when I go and see a writer, the first thing I think to myself is, 'Are they the character in the book?' You just can't help it; it's the way people are.
So many writers grew up in tortured isolation, in revolt against their families. I and my sister were in a house where writing was considered the worthiest thing you could try to do.
I tried to take seriously the idea that if you tortured language you might arrive at some new truth. Later it became clear to me that I was retreading ground by fighting the literary battles of the 1950s and 1960s, and that I was actually a bit bored by some of the books I professed to love.
I'm constantly being surprised and finding unplanned things - because the writing is a process of experiencing things on the ground with the characters.