A British villain never loses their sense of humour.

I find that after a screening, people really want to come and tell you what they feel.

I think English film is very embarrassed by patriotism, generally.

I began to think that if you're a stutterer, it's about inhabiting silence, emptiness, and nothingness.

I think directors can become overly infatuated by gilt and gold, and the word "lavish" and everything being magnificent.

A lot of dramas get a bad name commercially because they are unremittingly bleak.

I think the thumb print on the throat of many people is childhood trauma that goes unprocessed and unrecognized.

The irony of a director going to film festivals is you never get to see any of the films.

American cinema tends to express a patriotic relationship to national identity on a regular basis.

Great acting is all about being in the moment, being in the present tense.

I decided to be a filmmaker when I was 12. I had utter clarity that this would be my life.

Those that can be troubled to muse upon the meaning of life are general disappointed when they figure it out.

When you come to know God personally and He becomes your close Friend, you will live an easy and fulfilled life.

How could I have ever thought she was what was wrong in my life? She was the only thing that made any sense, and when she was broken and hurting, so was I.

What myth can hold when you kneel in your brother’s remains? When you slit his throat yourself? What story can guide us if we can betray all?

Time flies when you're fulfilling your ambitions in a completely unexpected way.

At high school, instead of the weekly essay, I would write a poem, and the teacher accepted that. The impulse was one of laziness, I'm certain. Poems were shorter than essays.

I think the most well-adjusted people live in the present with an eye toward the future - I'm not among those.

As if there's a world that exists that you're semi-privy to yet can't quite penetrate - that's how it feels when you're starting a book.

Humility is not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking of yourself less. Humility is thinking more of others.