I have often thought it was very arrogant to suppose you could make a film for anybody but yourself.

Painting is the supreme form of expression; you don't need to 'read' painting.

We live in a time of excess - excess population, excess information.

I admit that death is not just about you, it's also about the people who love you.

I like to think of The Falls as my own personal encyclopedia Greenaway-ensis.

Tulse Luper, who without too many confessions, in a sense, is a fictive version of me. I have to say he has far more exciting adventures, and certainly a lot of them sexual, than ever I've experienced. But in a sense, what you do with an alter ego, you give them all sorts of permissions and licences which you know you'll never be able to embrace in your real life.

Many quite popular films are filled with violence. I think the difference between those and my films is that I show the cause and effect of violent activity. It's not a Donald Duck situation where he get a brick in the back of the head and gets up and walks away in the next frame. Mine have violence which keeps Donald Duck in the hospital for six months and creates a trauma which he will remember for the rest of his life.