I can get very philosophical and ask the questions Keats was asking as a young guy. What are we here for? What's a soul? What's it all about? What is thinking about, imagination?

I would love to see more women directors because they represent half of the population and gave birth to the whole world. Without them the rest [of the world] are not getting to know the whole story.

There are some things that are real, that you can see, that you can observe, like the moon, and grass and things. But for ideas to become real, they have to be played on your senses.

For me, being a director is about watching, not about telling people what to do. Or maybe it's like being a mirror; if they didn't have me to look at, they wouldn't be able to put the make-up on.

I think if it's interesting, it's interesting, and if it's not, it's not working.

I'm someone who loves to play. I make films so I can have fun with the characters.

It's harder being a woman director because on the whole women don't have husbands or boyfriends who are willing to be wives

Only when you are relaxed can you see what's going on.

Performers are so vulnerable. They're frightened of humiliation, sure their work will be crap. I try to make an environment where it's warm, where it's OK to fail - a kind of home, I suppose.

The studio system is kind of an old boys system and it's difficult for them to trust women to be capable

Women today are dealing with both their independence and also the fact that their lives are built around finding and satisfying the romantic models we grew up with.

God has not given us the spirit of fear. So imagine where your fear coming from. It's from somewhere else!

i didn't call myself a writer until everyone else did. i knew it was real then.

The table was covered with food like roast chicken, roast potatoes, roast parsnips, roast turkey, roast liquorice and, the centrepiece, a roasted knight.

I don't want to be bored I don't want to be with someone I don't respect.

Never be bored, and you will never be boring.

Don't accept excuses; totally deny the status quo.

There is always the fear of self-righteousness possessing us, the fear of arrogating to ourselves a superiority that we do not possess.

Misfortune is no excuse for cruelty.

Its Constitution--the glittering and sounding generalities of natural right which make up the Declaration of Independence.

To be patient in an emergency is a terrible trial.