I think my Wallander stories give a fairly good image of the world in the 1990s. I don't regret anything about that - on the contrary!
If you have a good story idea, don't assume it must form a prose narrative. It may work better as a play, a screenplay or a poem. Be flexible.
It is my writing dilemma. The world of spying is my genre. My struggle is to demystify, to de-romanticise the spook world, but at the same time harness it as a good story.
I think sometimes actors are drawn to good television because you have more time to sell it, you have more time to shape a character, and to tell a story, and that's really appealing.
I might not write fiction in the literary sense. But I write very well. My characters are good. My dialogue is good. And my stories are really involving.
I want to do some fiction writing, I've had some pretty good luck with short stories, I'd like to do a couple of larger things.
I don't have the energy or the mental security to get involved with all that. I think it's a good idea to be able to disappear into the story, so that the first thing the audience sees isn't you, but the part.
Writers would submit scripts to me, and if I liked one well enough to submit to magazine editors, I had the know-how whether the story was good or bad.
I don't have a particular ambition in any medium. I just want to keep telling stories. If somebody pays me, also good.
I've never looked at my career in terms of, What haven't I done that I want to do? I just generally find a story that I think is a good one and go to work.
Life on earth is such a good story you cannot afford to miss the beginning... Beneath our superficial differences we are all of us walking communities of bacteria. The world shimmers, a pointillist landscape made of tiny living beings.
I have a hard time keeping a story straight when I tell the truth because when you start lying you have to remember what you said, and I'm not very good at that.
People who were more concerned with themselves and looking good to their readers then they were with the characters sacrificed a series for the sake of a story.
Players would empty their souls to me; you cannot fathom the stories I've heard, everything from the good to the bad. I tried whatever I could to work things out.
I don't think it's necessary to shout if you have a good story. But I also don't think you should shy away from being bold in the statement that you're making.
For over a year I continued to submit mss, and have them rejected - the last few with rejection letters indicated the story was pretty good, but I was American.
So certainly, if we can tell evil stories to make people sick, we can also tell good myths that make them well.
You can't completely control the sport - Tiger Woods comes close. The test is against yourself and nature's own way. I find golf a particularly good metaphor for this story.
I didn't ever think of it as a social thing at the time. I took it as a good story. Maybe because I've always been kind of progressive so I never thought of it, you know.
I'm just trying to tell a good story and make thought-provoking, entertaining films. I just try and draw upon the great culture we have as a people, from music, novels, the streets.
Television's grown up a lot. It's a little more adult, which I think is a good thing. It allows actors to tell more complex stories. I'm happy to see where it ends up.
