And I'm really sorry that because of my thoughtless, wilful, arrogant behaviour, I created enormous difficulties for my wife and my children, who I would do anything to not hurt".
I was aware that a lot of people saw my stance as wilful, capricious, greedy and selfish.
Like me, my father is wilful; after three decades in New York City, his soft, genteel Virginian accent is unadulterated.
The shocking state of our woeful and cynical new housing alone would stay my hand, while the wilful privatisation of our public realm would keep both hands firmly in my pockets.
On hearing that her grandchild had kept its legs in a tight ball during the scan, my Mum teased: "He/she is obviously as wilful as you!" My older brother thought it was hilarious and instantly began referring to the baby as Leslie, Vivien and other unisex names.
However, I always felt there was a wilful contrariness to my love of Bono, knowing that my stance was pissing the right people off.
The active, sexy, wilful protagonists of my latest script are an anomaly simply by being protagonists, and in control of their lives.
I believe that this can only be a wilful mischaracterisation of my work.
Issuing a press release about food vouchers for displaced people in Darfur (440,000 beneficiaries over seven months) was, in my view, an act of either wilful obfuscation or gross ineptitude.
In truth, she says, she's absent from showbiz by wilful design: "I need my privacy and I know where not to go"; plus "in Hackney there's no photographers".
