“Of course they’re out of date. Standards are always out of date. That is what makes them standards.”

Your whole life is on the other side of the glass. And there is nobody watching.

Children always assume the sexual lives of their parents come to a grinding halt at their conception.

I had no idea of who could play it, no notion really. Then Richard came to see us but I don’t think it was decided at that meeting.

History is a commentary on the various and continuing incapabilities of men. What is history? History is women following behind with the bucket.

Standards are always out of date. That’s what makes them standards.

To play Trivial Pursuit with a life like mine could be said to be a form of homeopathy.

No mention of God. They keep Him up their sleeves for as long as they can, vicars do. They know it puts people off.

I’m not “happy” but I’m not unhappy about it.

I turned down a knighthood. It would be like having to wear a suit every day of your life.

I’m not good at precise, coherent argument. But plays are suited to incoherent argument, put into the mouths of fallible people.

At the drabber moments of my life (swilling some excrement from the steps, for instance, or rooting with a bent coat-hanger down a blocked sink) thoughts occur like.

Because you should realise the Cenotaph and the Last Post and all that stuff is concerned, there’s no better way of forgetting something than by commemorating it.

Life is like a box of sardines and we are all looking for the key.

Were we closer to the ground as children, or is the grass emptier now?

It’s like going to a place that you’ve never been to before – you’ve got a picture of it and then you go there and that picture is totally wiped out by the reality.

You go to a book to have your convictions corroborated.

Even very young children need to be informed about dying. Explain the concept of death very carefully to your child. This will make threatening him with it much more effective.

Making a film is so hard that if you don’t have your main actors going along with the ride with the rest of the crew it can make your life very difficult.

How many people make themselves abstract to appear profound. The most useful part of abstract terms are the shadows they create to hide a vacuum.

All the passions make us commit faults; love makes us commit the most ridiculous ones.

I’ve had some fantastically good people help me make the movies.

The heart is forever making the head its fool.

If we made atomic bombs, we would bring about a terrible change in the world. Who knows what would happen from this?

Do not seek death. Death will find you. But seek the road which makes death a fulfillment.