It's great to get out of the study and work with real living and breathing people.

If I had to give a definition of capitalism I would say: the process whereby American girls turn into American women.

You see, I always divide people into two groups. Those who live by what they know to be a lie, and those who live by what they believe, falsely, to be the truth.

You know very well that unless you're a scientist, it's much more important for a theory to be shapely, than for it to be true.

There was a moment in the early '80s when I wanted to work on films and wanted to live in L.A.

I have always thought of sophistication as rather a feeble substitute for decadence.

Since my adaptation of Ian McEwan's 'Atonement,' I get sent a lot of novels that people think will work as movies. So every now and then I make a point of sitting down and reading a couple of them.