There are basically only two subject matters in all Western culture: sex and death. We do have some ability to manipulate sex nowadays. We have no ability, and never will have, to manipulate death.

The Sistine Chapel is an extraordinary work of education - it lays out all the early books of the Bible.

Cinema is not a playground for Sharon Stone.

The pretence that numbers are not the humble creation of man, but are the exacting language of the Universe and therefore possess the secret of all things, is comforting, terrifying and mesmeric.

I do indeed think that cinema is mortal. There is a lot of evidence already that it is dying on its feet.

An American critic wrote that she would rather be forced to read the New York telephone directory three times than watch the film A Zed and Two Noughts, a third of which was a homage to Vermeer. Conceivably, if you are a list-enthusiast like me, the New York telephone directory might be fascinating, demographically, geographically, historically, typographically, cartographically; but I am sure no compliment was intended.

I think my films are very English. That certain emotional distance, interest in the world, interest in irony. These are all deeply English propositions.