Quotes from Jack Thorne

I've just had a little boy, and my wife and I called him Elliott because 'E.T.' sort of saved my life because that film is absolutely about something being out there that's greater than yourself.

I cook every night: it's part of the marriage pact.

Writing is one of those jobs that everyone has an opinion on. I don't think this is a bad thing.

At my school, when kids went into the army at 16, they didn't do it in a gung-ho, Tom Cruise, 'Born on the Fourth of July' way. They were generally - and I hope this doesn't offend them - the more vulnerable members of the class. They enlisted seeking family, and they didn't always find it.

Hanging out with Pierce Brosnan on the set of 'A Long Way Down' was quite an extraordinary thing to do. The interesting thing is, he never behaves like a star. He's a really nice man.

I wrote my first play because I wanted to try directing something, and I couldn't afford the rights - it was an adaptation of a book called 'The Wave' by Morton Rhue.

They're odd beasts, musicals, but what I like about them is the way they allow windows into people's lives. When people sing, you get an opportunity to see a vulnerability, a glimpse of a life in a messed-up head.

I don't really write with actors in mind; I write with characters and then hope desperately that we can get good actors to play those parts.

I was taken to court for trying to travel on a child ticket to Glastonbury '97. I was, and still am, 6 ft. 5.

I struggle quite a lot in rehearsals, partly because I'm shy, partly because I still don't really understand the work that actors and directors do. I love the magic at the end, but the getting there - the wrong turns that are necessary to make something work - I find slightly beguiling and worrying.

I am trying to write a play that is big and I feel represents me - that's my big ambition.

I'm not very articulate. I don't have that skill.

The thing about having a very young audience in the theatre is that sometimes they laugh at the bullying scenes. It's really interesting, what that means. It still confuses me slightly, you know; someone's getting quite brutally bullied on stage and people are laughing. I think it's very hard being young.

I'm a constant idiot in conversation - I always seem to sound either smug or stupid. Writing plays was a way of winning the conversation by controlling the conversation.

When I was in my early twenties, I spent six months bedbound with a condition called Cholinergic Urticaria that basically means I'm allergic to heat, including my own body. It was bad.

I'm going to feel intimidated whatever: that's just my natural state. So I may as well embrace intimidation.

I wrote about 22 plays before 'When You Cure Me,' which was staged in 2005. I occasionally get them out and have a read, thinking maybe there's a thought or an idea or even a turn of phrase that I could use for something new. There's not. They're dire.

I think London is a bit sad, and I find it a bit overwhelming. There's a lot of quite unhappy people, and it's very goal-driven.

I can't do anything other than writing. I'm not very able, generally. If I'd not been a writer, I would probably be a very unsuccessful political adviser to someone or have worked for a council.

I tended to be the nerdy kid - stood at the back, watching other people having fun - I wasn't always necessarily a big part of the fun myself.

Obama said that his performance at bowling was so bad 'it was like the Special Olympics or something.' Disability, by Obama's definition, was about difference and failure.