What I have learned from my work up to now, is to try to be open, but also protect myself by not letting the good and the evil get too much importanc….

I took four years off after 'In the Cut' because I wanted to see who I'd be without work. I even tried being a hermit in the wilderness in New Zealan….

There are some things that are real, that you can see, that you can observe, like the moon, and grass and things. But for ideas to become real, they ….

In some ways Holy Smoke is about people's journey to the heart..

Women today are dealing with both their independence and also the fact that their lives are built around finding and satisfying the romantic models w….

When you first fall in love it's so thrilling, you can't wait to throw yourself away and make this new wonderful twosome..

You know, sex is actually not so original as the way people love or the stories behind each relationship, which is what you remember. Sex is sex in t….

This is the first generation to grow up on Thatcher - it's a different ethos. It's money minded, and it's the cult of yourself. Now that's fine, exce….

Actual violence has no attraction for me at all..

I think I made good movies..

I have to admit that I had a lot of problems with poetry..

I think the whole tension about romanticism is the way it builds and builds, and the moment it's consummated, the tension's over..

I think this is interesting, us human creatures are capable of love, and it's a very powerful emotion. It also can go awfully wrong..

It's harder being a woman director because on the whole women don't have husbands or boyfriends who are willing to be wives.

Performers are so vulnerable. They're frightened of humiliation, sure their work will be crap. I try to make an environment where it's warm, where it….

I love it when actors come to you with a problem and you have to listen. You'd like them to just get on with it, but it often means that there's a pr….

As for how criticism of Keats' poetry relates to criticism of my own work, I'll leave that for others to decide..

I think that three-act fundamentalism in film culture is a problem sometimes, because it's almost too obvious, or it's too expected. And it's not the….

When I read Andrew Motion's biography, I wept. It's something about the purity of the story and how fresh it was because of the love letters Keats wr….

I seem to have been able to make a career out of doing what I feel like doing, so why not keep doing it? What's corrupting is wanting to be more impo….

And, I mean, I think poetry does need to be met to some extent, especially, I guess, 19th century poetry, and for me, it's just been so worth the eff….