I can't do a film if I don't start with the writing..

Is it fair to have given us the memory of what was and the desire of what could be when we must suffer what is?.

The whole Ireland was taken over by greed and materialism. It was extraordinary. The price of every house had skyrocketed. If you were a small farmer….

If you're brought up Catholic, you're convinced of magic at a very early age. You're convinced the world isn't entirely real, which is a kind of conv….

I had made a decision, although I hardly knew it yet. It's often that way with decisions, they're made in some hidden part of us and the awareness se….

Films have gotten leaner and leaner, cutting out all variations from the story line..

There's no point in making a film out of a great book. The book's already great. What's the point?.

I'm less comfortable making American movies because I don't know them so well..

Hollywood always chooses young and beautiful men and throws them into enormous, highly expensive toy-like movies, and I think sometimes it's hard for….

Never make a promise - you may have to keep it..

The Company of Wolves doesn't belong in any category, so it's difficult to prepare an audience for it. It's not a horror film, it's not a fantasy fil….

I've had three novels published, and I was working a little bit in theater in Ireland. I wrote one film script just to see what it would turn out lik….

Well, I suppose I'm interested in ways of storytelling and in stories that are about storytelling..

For me now, it's about what you would write and what you wouldn't write, and that's how I select what I am going to do. It can be quite nice being br….

For me, the filmmaking has to be about the dramaturgy..

I hoped that grief was similar to the other emotions. That it would end, the way happiness did. Or laughter..

It's hard to know whether certain characters come to life or not, they either come to have their own life or they don't. I've written many things in ….

If movies have to satisfy every possible quadrant before they're even made, they're dull. You only get great things when people overreach themselves..

The truth is that seals look more like dogs. And I'm surrounded by seals because I live by the sea. They're odd bloody creatures. Not fish, they don'….

Initially with The Butcher Boy, there was this kid growing up in this strange, weird environment that I remember from when I was a kid. And Patrick's….

Ireland is becoming like everywhere else, but that's the one I grew up in: the one that's hugely illogical. Rather wonderful, in a way. I never found….