Some of my favorite movies are Hollywood movies. Hollywood is part of the cinematic spectrum. I nurture a healthy love-hate relationship with Hollywood.

When I was young I used to sit in the cinema thinking wouldn't it be great if you could have a film in which the characters were like real people instead of being like actors.

I try and create for the audience something that relates to real-life experience.

Given the choice of Hollywood or poking steel pins in my eyes, I'd prefer steel pins.

I hope I make films where you walk away . . . with work to do, arguments to have, things to worry about, things to care about. In that sense, I would regard what I do as political.

My work is about life as you and I experience it. You're either lucky or you're not lucky; either your relationship works or it doesn't.

But films should be voyeuristic. What else is a film if you’re not snooping into somebody else’s lives?

There's a constant drip and trickle of life that goes into one's awareness really and consciousness of things.

I discover what my film is by embarking on the journey of making it.

The way an actor is trained doesn't ultimately have much bearing on my work. I'm interested in the actor as artist.

It's an unhealthy habit to say that life is what you make of it, and if you want to be happy, then you can be happy. That's just rubbish, basically.

The act of creation fascinates me. You can only sit with blank page and wait. You cannot press a button, cannot program it.

When you came, you were like red wine and honey, and the taste of you burnt my mouth with its sweetness.

You made delay, but time will not, and lost time is never found again.

I was a great believer in hot buttered toast at all hours of the day.

Even nice things don't make you happy when you're tired.

I cotton to the idea that people are much closer to being flawed; they have problems and dont always make the right choices.

If Paris that brief flight allow, My humble tomb explore! It bears: Eternity, be thou My refuge! and no more.

It's a strange place where the film industry is at. I guess you could just play superhero after superhero. That seems to be the only guaranteed big-money thing. I don't know.

It is certainly no part of religion to compel religion.

Be careful what you wish for, you may receive it.