Jack Cardiff - the greatest cameraman who ever worked in colour - was a lab boy to start with so he knew Technicolor from the inside out.

Like a lady who has lost weight and she's just getting to that point where she can fit into that favourite dress, you get the film down to just about the right cut. You can feel it when it happens.

I read the script just once, and then forget it.I just deal with what I see every day on the screen and whetherI believe it and understand it.

You have to keep banging away at something until you get it to work. I think women are maybe better at that.

Michael Powell always used to say 'I'm a typical Englishman'. He was and he wasn't. He was very cosmopolitan and spent a lot of time in Europe.

Experience is not worth the getting. It's not a thing that happens pleasantly to a passive you--it's a wall that an active you runs up against.

And I just walked away. Again and again, I walked away as her world fell down around her. As they destroyed her. We destroyed her.

People often ask if one day mankind attains immortality, how he will be able to get rid of the eternal boredom problem? The answer is this: By embarking on eternal adventures!

You're shocked, Mr. Burton, at hearing what our gossiping little town thinks. I can tell you this - they always think the worst!

History doesn't always move in a straight line. Sometimes it zigs and zags.

About time you grew up and became a vampire like the rest of us.

I never see my bad guys as simply bad. They want pretty much the same thing that you and I want: they want to be happy.

Dying is a really hard way to learn about life.

It is difficult to resist a force of nature, Maman. His seduction is like all my senses struck by bolts of lightning.

He will deal harshly by a stranger who has not been himself often a traveller or stranger.