When asked what attribute he most admired in human nature, Mahatma Gandhi replied, simply and immediately, 'Courage'. 'Nonviolence', he said, 'is not to be used ever as the shield of the coward. It is the weapon of the brave.

I came from a family who believed in, in quotes, the Rights of Man, who believed that in order to justify the sort of luxurious life that the majority of us have, related to the whole world, that you had to do something.

I do not have a brain that I long for in dealing with matters of which I am ignorant, that don't come within my ken and a rationale, a reason, and argument and so on, and I can't do that and I'm not in that bracket at all.

I can't write, I can't paint, I don't compose.

If you are directing, you have the opportunity to put your signature on the bottom of the frame. You have the opportunity to say, "This is what I believe. That is my credo. That is what I wish to state."

I prefer fact to fiction.

And that is how I employ my time in cinema, saying things about people who I think have touched us in terms of our value judgement and by example.