What I didn't understand was that the personal and the political go together. I felt at the time I had to sacrifice my children's present for their future. It seemed an either/or. I didn't realise that by being with one's own children I would have had a better understanding of the ones who are not my own. I was thinking of them but I didn't spend the time that they needed from me. It's a tribute to them that they came out so well.

Ask the right questions if you're going to find the right answers.

We will always want films ... that basically are centred on young people, because young people is the way we live on, we older people, insofar as we live on.

As a mother you have got to have a view for now and a view for the future.

What a script says that isn't dialogue is as important as the spoken word.

The arts stop society going rotten and mad.

The society Shakespeare knew was heading for tremendous change, and he seems to have recognized that and written about it in a coded way. I understand those codes, I think