I’m quite intrigued by the notion of a book that is completely self-contained but related to another book. I’ve coined a rather hideous word for it – a paraquel.

You have an hour and a half or two hours – maybe two and a half hours – in a movie, and it has to be a self-contained three-act structure. It’s like a rock and roll song. Certain things have to happen for it to be a toe-tapper and get people excited, leaving the theater.

Poems, unlike songs, are written to be read and, thus, come equipped with their own rhythms and melodies; they’re self-contained entities, the whole shebang.

I am not possessive at all. In every relationship I have had, the girl has left me. And the fundamental complaint has been that I am self-contained. I am just comfortable with myself and am always on an adventure.

I think there is a very powerful wish that we all have of being self-contained and having sort of opted out or choosing to remove ourselves from society and to have no ties and no obligations, and even no possessions. To be free in a particular way.

China is one of those vast, continental conglomerates that… I mean, if they were to start a tourist trade in China, they’d just bus people in from another province, you know what I mean? They’re very self-contained.

Not being as self-contained as men, we need to share things: It’s almost as though you only know what you feel about things after you share them with a woman.

Every single song on ‘Torches‘ was a little self-contained pop song, so there wasn’t any fat on the songs; there wasn’t a lot to cut.

I sort of try to write everything for me. I’m a huge sports fan but have no interest in minutiae. I don’t remember who won Super Bowls five years ago or listen to sports talk radio. I’m trying to make sure the jokes are self-contained so they’re accessible to everyone.

So long as the universe had a beginning, we could suppose it had a creator. But if the universe is really completely self-contained, having no boundary or edge, it would have neither beginning nor end: it would simply be. What place, then, for a creator?

Writers seldom choose as friends those self-contained characters who are never in trouble, never unhappy or ill, never make mistakes and always count their change when it is handed to them.

I have total respect for the self-contained rock artist. Whether you’re dealing with Jerry Garcia or Lou Reed or Patti Smith or a Whitney or an Aretha, they know what they want with their career.

Even if an episode is self-contained, the preceding episodes always affect how the audience takes it in.

During my teenage years as an Islamist recruiter, I moved to live in self-contained communities in the London boroughs of Newham and Tower Hamlets.

Crime is one of the leads of the show. If there’s ever anything that deals with a character‘s personal life, you don’t have to worry about it getting too crazy. People don’t have to worry about character arcs. Each episode is a self-contained unit.