We had loved people we really shouldn't have loved and then married other people in order to forget our impossible loves, or we had once called out hello into the cauldron of the world and then run away before anyone could respond.

As a child I sometimes used to travel to the West Bank to visit my family, so I know what the checkpoints felt like. I knew what it was like to live under occupation.

Governments cannot make marriages or turn feckless individuals into responsible citizens. That needs another kind of change agent.

I'm a good son, a good father, a good husband - I've been married to the same woman for 30 years. I'm a good friend. I finished college, I have my education, I donate money anonymously. So when people criticize the kind of characters that I play on screen, I go, 'You know, that's part of history.'

There are plenty of men who philander during the summer, to be sure, but they are usually the same lot who philander during the winter - albeit with less convenience.

The weekend break had begun with the usual resentment and had continued with half-repressed ill humour. It was, of course, his fault. He had been more ready to hurt his wife's feelings and deprive his daughter than inconvenience a pub bar full of strangers. He wished there could be one memory of his dead child which wasn't tainted with guilt and regret.