Neil Jordan Quotes

I hoped that grief was similar to the other emotions. That it would end, the way happiness did. Or laughter.

Is it fair to have given us the memory of what was and the desire of what could be when we must suffer what is?

For me, the filmmaking has to be about the dramaturgy.

Films have gotten leaner and leaner, cutting out all variations from the story line.

Well, Company of Wolves was about that literally, about fairy tales.

My conception of it was that in a normal film you have a story with different movements that program, develop, go a little bit off the trunk, come back, and end.

Never make a promise - you may have to keep it.

Initially with The Butcher Boy, there was this kid growing up in this strange, weird environment that I remember from when I was a kid. And Patrick's vision was so complete there.

I do enjoy working with writers.

Well, I suppose I'm interested in ways of storytelling and in stories that are about storytelling.

You've got to play what people think you are, rather than what you are. You have to have a sense of what you are as you're playing what people think you are.

I took two years away from making films to write a novel.

I mean I grew up in Ireland, so one would have to be consciously blinkered not to have reflected on the issue of political violence because that was the story since I was 19 years old or 20.

I've had three novels published, and I was working a little bit in theater in Ireland. I wrote one film script just to see what it would turn out like.

When you've written a movie, you then get together with a whole lot of people and make it. In many ways, I think it is far nicer to be with people rather than being completely solitary.

The Company of Wolves doesn't belong in any category, so it's difficult to prepare an audience for it. It's not a horror film, it's not a fantasy film, it's not a children's film - so what is it?

In Dreams...well, I was slightly overcompensating with that. I was a bit like a director for hire, so maybe I was putting too much imagery that was familiar to me into it.

It's nice to work with Hollywood because there is never any question of resources put at your disposal to make a film as long as it is the right thing to do.

And I think I often choose to do something because it's quite different from what I've done before.

It is extremely difficult to get movies that cost more than $40 million to be made these days.

It's the same thing in a way, although writing a book is a very solitary thing.

I can't do a film if I don't start with the writing.

For me now, it's about what you would write and what you wouldn't write, and that's how I select what I am going to do. It can be quite nice being brought a concept by a studio for me to work on.

It's hard to know whether certain characters come to life or not, they either come to have their own life or they don't. I've written many things in which the characters just remain inert.

I'm less comfortable making American movies because I don't know them so well.

There's no point in making a film out of a great book. The book's already great. What's the point?

If movies have to satisfy every possible quadrant before they're even made, they're dull. You only get great things when people overreach themselves.

A prince may be seen happy today and ruined tomorrow without having shown any chance in his character. For the prince who relies entirely on fortune is lost when it changes...

You are intelligent, you are diplomatic, you are beautiful, and you are and always will be...[he kisses her]...MINE...

Don't you understand brother? I want to find a love...that will free me from this love...

I am afraid of him now. The one I love most in the world.