T.S. Eliot, who learned to swim at the same beach as I did, just threw in the towel and moved to Cheyne Walk. I'm not going to do that but I'm not scared of the open channel between me and Britain.

I don't think the latest Star Wars pictures have any artistic intentions, but the original picture opened up epic science fiction.

I'm not a precious text protector, or anything like that, you know, because it's a much more vital form than that. You have to rock.

I'm interested in stories about human beings. I don't care where or when they are set.

By the time someone gave me some samples of standard screenplays I was already beyond that stuff, because I was not only a tinkerer in ways to do things, I'd started from Dylan Thomas. As a screen dramatist he was a very intense visualist, with great timing and fluency.

The thing about movies is if somebody has an idea that works, it's in, and I say that as a screenwriter as well as a director.

If you decide to do Hamlet in a funny hat staged in a ruined factory, it doesn't make you Shakespeare.