At school, I decided I wanted to be a director and then I went out and spent the rest of my adult life trying to be a director. It was really clear to me. So in that sense I was very lucky.

I am, in fact, Superman. Every morning I wake up and go into a telephone booth and change my costume, and then go to work.

You go through a process of refinement and getting rid of the excesses of your early youth in terms of your excitement about what theatre can do.

There are a few writers that one has a relationship with that means, basically, you do whatever they say. One is Caryl Churchill, and the other is David Hare.

I'm a theatre person, that's who I am. I'm happy to make sojourns into the world of movies but I'm basically a theatre director that potters off and does a couple of movies.

I have never been motivated by money in my life. You can't make choices based on what the financial return might be.

England is strictly class-based. What's surprising is how many films are still made with a load of people in silly frocks running around gardens and talking in middle-class accents.

As soon as I know how to do something, I usually get bored with it.

I always say, 'I really need to take a break.' It's three days in and I'm getting pretty bored.

I categorically resist this idea that films are supposed to be autobiographical and the only stories you tell are about your own life.

I would love to do something for TV... I wanna do 'Kavalier & Clay' on HBO as an eight-parter. It'll be so much better as a series, honestly.

Find your gift, the thing you were created for, the thing that inspires you and the thing you are fond of doing, and the thing you are doing better than others

There is nothing left in your right brain, and there is nothing right in your left brain..

And, to be true, an enemy's lair is an enemy's lair, no matter how comfortable or fancy it might appear.

It is often easier to fight for principles than to live up to them.

Spending time outdoors makes you feel great.

The worst thing that can happen is death, and that's not the worst thing in the world either.

My campaign filed the bill back in 2002 in the Democratic legislature, 85% Democratic, they could have prevented any possibility of a split vote.

Take me shoppin in France and he pay in advance.

I've always said there's a place for the press but they haven't dug it yet.