Having started in sciences, I then turned around and said, 'Oh, I don't want to do sciences. I want to do philosophy.' And to their credit my parents said, 'if that's what you want to do, then go for it'. Then I got the scholarship to Stanford, which was very nice for the parents to talk to their friends about.

I'm fascinated by people who have to reinvent themselves. I did it a few times - I was going to be a physicist before I was passionate about philosophy - and I realized that one more change, and I'm going to start looking like a dilettante.

I think that I must be the only person who left California and headed to Dublin in pursuit of a career in film. The arrow is pointing in the other direction in most people's minds.

I'm not setting out to adapt books and work with books, but when really amazing stories come to you in that form, it's really hard to turn away from that.

I read almost no romantic fiction, in part because I barely believe in romance in the age of Tinder.

Politics only makes the difficult challenge of marriage even harder, with the demands of the job and the public spotlight it casts on a union.

I don't write the kind of 'happily ever after' that romance readers enjoy.

Marriage is a good deal like a circus: there is not as much in it as is represented in the advertising.