I really have to give the Navy all the credit it deserves. They were so flexible and accommodating, given that everybody on board had better things to worry about than this person coming on board who's just going to be in the way, really.

I was studying English, as you will, in the day, and five nights a week, I would be at the cinema. That continued throughout my 20s, which was also the 1980s - there was a lot of really good films coming out then.

One of the great privileges of my life was growing up in a house without books.

I am still moved by passages of Marx: the 'Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right,' for example, where, after the famous line about religion being 'the opium of the people,' he goes on to call it 'the heart of a heartless world.'

Heroes are a way to remove yourself from what may be difficult concepts to talk about in your life. They're a way to get some distance and have an experience in a theater where you're confronting those issues in a way that's safer for your psyche.

I really think truth comes from the body. When you're running for your life, you breathe differently; you talk differently.

Life is without meaning. You bring the meaning to it. The meaning of life is whatever you ascribe it to be. Being alive is the meaning.

In fact the experience at Oxford has really helped me later in life.