[Taboo] has been exactly the same as working with the BBC in that creatively they do that precious thing which is to only make a comment when a comment needs to be made.

The story [of Allied] stayed with me, like a stray dog outside the office, waiting.

I think that helps because there has been no formality of friendship, the politeness of friendship, so we can just work directly on the work that's ahead of us [with Tom Hardey].

If you've read something brilliant, it's good. It's good to look out the window and see what's going on in the world.

True stories are always good because they're so odd, and so unlikely.

In terms of how [Allied] looks, it's fantastic and much better than I had hoped because it's so lush and so beautifully executed.

It's always good to have a world that people don't know about - a world that hasn't yet been done. It's like treading on fresh snow. You're the first one there.

No screenplay is possible, unless you get some attachment from somebody who's going to get it made.

Sometimes you take something because it's an offer and it's big and it's good money and you have to absolutely respect that process, because it's not easier.

I've realized that the only thing I'm interested in is the performance. If the performance is right, then I'm happy. You offer up the dialogue and then the performance comes around.

There's lots of different ways of writing stuff and lots of different mindsets to have, but I think when it's your own creation, it's more pleasurable because you have total control.

It wasn't until I started reading and found books they wouldn't let us read in school that I discovered you could be insane and happy and have a good life without being like everybody else.

I am more than my measurements. The cycle of body-shaming needs to end. I’m over it… My body is MY body. I’ll call the shots.

If I had not lived so long I wouldn't be so old!

A book isn't worth reading if it's not worth discussing.

Religion is the best antidote to the individualism of the consumer age. The idea that society can do without it flies in the face of history and, now, evolutionary biology.

Analysis does not set out to make pathological reactions impossible, but to give the patient's ego freedom to decide one way or another.

If you wish to remove avarice you must remove its mother, luxuries. [Lat., Avaritiam si tollere vultis, mater ejus est tollenda, luxuries.]

... the song of the world is all of love.

As a kid, I loved Godot because of the poetry and the humor and the strangeness, but then as you get older, its much more resonant.

We need to discover a common middle ground in which all of these things, from the city to the wilderness, can somehow be encompassed in the word “home.”