"Someone told me that the middle of the road is the only place you definitely get run over, and this is very obvious, housewife soul… you can’t say that any more, can you? But I just like how it’s created. I get really into the fact that the band used to just bang out these songs, they’d put down these drum tracks then Al Green would just come in at the last minute and sing on top of it all. They’re so patterned, cyclical, and he just it off. It’s a load of faux, pre-religious romantic nonsense, but really well done. They were kind of cynical, I reckon. ‘Let’s knock a few of these out in a day and we’re on!’ They’re kind of simple songs when you look back at it, there’s a lack of depth to Al Green, but he’s got such a good voice, and such a good drummer. And age has made it sound cooler, but the core isn’t cool at all."

"When I first came to town, in 1989, I was hired to work on a sitcom starring Robert Mitchum. Yes, really. And at the first writers’ meeting, I mentioned to the more senior staff members that I was kind of excited to meet him. Well, most of the other writers had never seen Mitchum in anything, so I invited them over to watch a video of The Night of the Hunter, arguably one of the great pieces of art in movie history. It’s somewhat surreal and heightened and theatrical, and they laughed at it. I knew then I was in a world of trouble. It’s the only movie directed by Charles Laughton and one of the only screenplays written by James Agee. Mitchum is an evil “religious” fraud, and Lillian Gish is the embodiment of good. The movie scares you, then makes you cry at how beautiful it is. The sitcom was cancelled after seven episodes."