Life is full of a thousand red herrings, and it takes the history of a civilisation to work out which are the red herrings and which aren't.

Too many proofs spoil the truth.

My audience is comprised of three categories. The first category contains the people who decide after the first five minutes that they've made a mistake and leave. The second category is the people who give the film a chance and leave annoyed after 40 minutes. The third category includes the people that watch the whole film and return to see it again. If I'm able to persuade 33% of the audience to stay, then I can say that I've succeeded.

Human relationships are patterned and cross-patterned and restricted and limited and delimited and caged and freed again by the elaborate conventions, rules and games which we call civilisation. They're often absurd and farcical, and sometimes they're tragic, yet we acknowledge that they are necessary.

English culture is highly literary-based.

All religions have always hated females.

If you're a Shakespeare fan, isn't that a way to negotiate sex and death?