Christopher Hampton Quotes

I think there's something degrading about having a husband for a rival. It's humiliating if you fail and commonplace if you succeed.

To seduce a woman famous for strict morals, religious fervor and the happiness of her marriage: what could possibly be more prestigious?

I have always thought of sophistication as rather a feeble substitute for decadence.

If I had to give a definition of capitalism I would say: the process whereby American girls turn into American women.

Masturbation is the thinking man's television.

You see, I always divide people into two groups. Those who live by what they know to be a lie, and those who live by what they believe, falsely, to be the truth.

I like L.A., but I think whats changed is that the kinds of films I do, the mid-range dramatic film, has become an endangered species.

You know very well that unless you're a scientist, it's much more important for a theory to be shapely, than for it to be true.

There is a sort of theory that you should adapt bad books because they always make more successful films.

I'm ashamed to say the first play I saw at the Royal Court was mine.

Since my adaptation of Ian McEwan's 'Atonement,' I get sent a lot of novels that people think will work as movies. So every now and then I make a point of sitting down and reading a couple of them.

It's great to get out of the study and work with real living and breathing people.

If you take a really good book, then the potential is for a really good film. But you've got to get it right.

It's possible to disagree with someone about the ethics of non-violence without wanting to kick his face in.

Often I think the novels I read won't make very good movies - I better not say which I'm looking at for potential films! - but it's nice to have an excuse to just sit and read for a whole day.

There was a moment in the early '80s when I wanted to work on films and wanted to live in L.A.

I love films. If I'd known how to get into or do it from the word go, I would have done that.

My problem is I'm a man of no convictions - at least, I think I am.

I find I have to give myself a day when I just shut myself off and do nothing but read.

Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamppost how it feels about dogs.