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.

I find I have to give myself a day when I just shut myself off and do nothing but read.

Masturbation is the thinking man's television.

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

A great number of the disappointments and mishaps of the troubled world are the direct result of literature and the allied arts. It is our belief that no human being who devotes his life and energy to the manufacture of fantasies can be anything but fundamentally inadequate.

There is a sort of theory that you should adapt bad books because they always make more successful films.

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