Not everyone who wants to make a film is crazy, but almost everyone who is crazy wants to make a film.

I was brought up on the proletarian left, and I remain there. The fair go for workers is fundamental, and I don't believe the free market has a mind.

I've got life for a subject because as life starts to drain away, you start seeing very clearly what life is, for the first time.

The secret for an artist is to make that a subject and not bang your head against the wall and give up. But to turn it into and treat the new subject matter, which is one's own vanishing.

The British secret service was staffed at one point almost entirely by alcoholic homosexuals working for the KGB

All honest labor becomes easy; it only becomes hard when done with unwillingness.

Beyoncé and pathos are strangers. Amy Winehouse and pathos are flatmates, and you should see the kitchen.