There has been one defining production for me in each decade.

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.

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.

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.

Love is the beginning of understanding.

When you really believe that using sword can kill people, that's when you will be subject to the law of the sword, "those who use the sword will die by the sword.

You can get to oppression through regulation, especially in an "Idea Economy" which necessitates liberty of the mind to explore.

What do most people say on their deathbed? They don't say, 'I wish I'd made more money.' What they say is, 'I wish I'd spent more time with my family and done more for society or my community.

Though conscious of the difficulty of learning without a teacher, I set out with high hope, and a fixed purpose, at whatever cost of trouble, to learn how to read.

If you can keep as silent as a broken gong, then you have attained, when you know no anger.

Vigilance is not only the price of liberty, but of success of any sort.

I thank God who slowly dressed me in a heavy skin, otherwise I would now be dead.

For the most part I'll probably do floor exercise and balance beam. Those are the two things that I do.

Rock music is predictable, unless theres great talent involved.