David Mitchell

As long as our civilisation keeps trundling along generally forwards, then there is the possibility of a future where ethnicity is merely an interesting badge, not a uniform you can't take off.

For me, novels coalesce into being, rather than arrive fully formed.

If the human condition were the periodic table, maybe love would be hydrogen at No. 1. Death would be helium at No. 2. Power, I reckon, would be where oxygen is.

Most of my films seem to be about people bewildered by the world around them, who don't fit into it and are trying to understand it.

I don't really have time to watch too much, but I like 'Family Guy' and 'Entourage.' I'm also obsessed with the YouTube series 'Balls of Steel.' It's hilarious.

Another thing that freaks me out is time. Time is like a book. You have a beginning, a middle and an end. It's just a cycle.