The Company of Wolves is about how society teaches young women to look at themselves, and what to be afraid of. It's about a girl learning that the world of sensuality and the unknown is not to be feared, that it's worth getting your teeth into.

Never make a promise - you may have to keep it.

I can't do a film if I don't start with the writing.

My conception of it was that in a normal film you have a story with different movements that program, develop, go a little bit off the trunk, come back, and end.

There's no point in making a film out of a great book. The book's already great. What's the point?

I don't know why anybody would come to Ireland chasing a dream or even employment - that's an extraordinary thing for a place where traditionally one was unemployed. For 10 years, people were coming from all over the world looking for employment here, kind of an extraordinary phenomenon. That's stopped now.

The most difficult thing is the organization of people and the expression of your intentions. It's very easy to have a picture in your head and to imagine that you've told everybody about what you need.