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.

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.

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

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.

Often I think the novels I read won't make very good movies - I better not say which I'm looking at for potential films! - but it's nice to have an excuse to just sit and read for a whole day.

I like L.A., but I think whats changed is that the kinds of films I do, the mid-range dramatic film, has become an endangered species.

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.