Painters used red like spice

I'm not afraid of death but I am afraid of dying. Pain can be alleviated by morphine but the pain of social ostracism cannot be taken away.

Violet has the shortest wavelength of the spectrum. Behind it, the invisible ultraviolet. Roses are Red, Violets are Blue. Poor violet, violated for a rhyme.

Red protects itself. No colour is as territorial. It stakes a claim, is on the alert against the spectrum.

The Last Of England works with image and sound, a language which is nearer to poetry than prose. It tells its story quite happily in silent images, in contrast to a word-bound cinema.

All men are homosexual, some turn straight. It must be very odd to be a straight man because your sexuality is hopelessly defensive. It's like an ideal of racial purity.

Oh how Shakespeare would have loved cinema!

People say to me, "You make fantastic films" and I say, "No, I make documentaries.

I want the world to be filled with white fluffy duckies

If Gucci handbags were still in fashion Greenaway would carry his scripts in them.

I'm not afraid of death but I am afraid of dying.

I need them and they need me to need them

If you live cautiously, your friends will call you wise. You just won't move many mountains

Some ministers would make good martyrs: they are so dry they would burn well.

Take a look at the books other people have in their homes.

As always in a musical collaboration: One has to like each other. As simple as that.

Just like those who are incurably ill, the aged know everything about their dying except exactly when.

When we choose to follow Christ in faith rather than choosing another path out of fear, we are blessed with a consequence that is consistent with our choice.

Adam was a gardener, and God, who made him, sees that half of all good gardening is done upon the knees.

Never touch a butterfly's wing with your finger.

I never quite dare to believe I'm brave enough to be an artist, but I'm on the side of artists. I think of myself as a bit of a Salieri, looking with longing eyes at Mozart.