"You really need stitches,' she tells me.'Or you're going to have a scar.' I try not to laugh. Stitches aren't going to help. They fix skin, cuts, wounds, heal stuff on the outside. Everything broken with me is on the inside. 'I can handle scars, especially one's on the outside."

"She dove, plunging fully beneath the surface and came up again in tears. Rivulets ran from her face, and the sun ignited them each, transforming them, even amid her sorrow, into gilded runnels set with a diamond shine."

"[on Martin Freeman playing Bilbo Baggins] It was great. I got to hang out with him, and I kept a straight face for a bit and then I started giggling because I know Martin, I don't know Bilbo. For Martin to be sitting there playing Bilbo is amazing. He's going to be amazing, he's going to be fantastic in this film."

"There are many places you need to be, but there is nowhere to reach. There are many people you need to see but no one to meet. And there are many contacts in your phone but no one to talk. There are many masks in your closet but no face to please."

"Before I shall have become a man again I shall probably exist as a park, a sort of natural park in which people come to rest, to while away the time. What they say or do will be of little matter, for they will bring only their fatigue, their boredom, their hopelessness."