Culture is something that we all share and we are all the poorer for anyone excluded from it.

I always call Billy Elliot a fantasy autobiography because I never wanted to be a dancer, but I got a lot of stick from the other kids about wanting to be a writer and being interested in drama.

There’s no comparison. Veganism is the single most important thing that one can do today.

In a way, 'Billy Elliot' was autobiographical. I can't dance, but I think his dancing was me discovering about writing and literature.

From kings to groundlings, Shakespeare made his work profound for everybody. That is how it should be. There is no hierarchy in theatre. It makes everyone part of a collective.

You become a candidate for God’s love when you are rejected by people

You will be most readily cured of vanity or presumption by studying the history of music, and by hearing the master pieces which have been produced at different periods.

If the existentialists are right, that life is meaningless, and if we acknowledge that, we are better equipped to find pleasure in small things.

He cracked his crooked smile that made all women swoon except the ones who wanted to slap him. Faye was a fence-sitter on the subject.

Now, leave." All three boys slumped forward. Percy fell face-first into his pizza. "Percy!" Annabeth grabbed him.

In order to ask with real intent or to act with full purpose of heart, we must always make an accompanying commitment.

The air of ideas is the only air worth breathing.

One of the greatest dignities of humankind is that each successive generation is invested in the welfare of each new generation.

Their woes gone by, and both to heaven upflown, To bow for gratitude before Jove's throne.

If you think about my filmography, I have never done a movie that a kid could go see, except for Iron Giant, and I'm not even on the screen.