“Well, if you ask any filmmaker how they got into it, everyone came a different route.”

Ive never actually watched another director work.

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.

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

It doesn’t matter what the technology is – no one will watch a Peter Greenaway film anyway.

So fine that the Irish don’t even acknowledge that it exists.

If you’d been where I’d been… if you’d seen the things I’d seen!… you… you’d be me… Or someone following me around.

Have a go. Anybody can do it.

I was once described by one of my critics as an aesthetic fascist.

I’m a pluralist. I’ve always argued that as many different films as possible should be made.

Rain is also very difficult to film, particularly in Ireland because it’s quite fine.

A Great Movie Evolves when Everybody Has the Same Vision in Their Heads.

The films that I do tend to polarise people’s views.

I’ve always been completely autocratic. I’ve never learned to be diplomatic or democratic.

Personally I am very much against the death penalty for several reasons.

Most directors have little lists in their heads of people they really want to work with.

Film-making is a physically hard job.

I came here with the perfect chemist’s perception. The formula they had was perfect and any added ingredient could make it go bad or worse.

It takes courage to lead a life. Any life.

Before every game I used to go out and shot the same shots over and over and over. In the summer time I spent a lot of time just shooting. So really it just came natural.

But, my dear sirs, when peace does come, you may call on me for any thing. Then will I share with you the last cracker, and watch with you to shield your homes and families against danger from every quarter.

Coming down was the hardest part of any climbing.

Any writer of any worth at all hopes to play only a pocket-torch of light – and rarely, through genius, a sudden flambeau – into the bloody yet beautiful labyrinth of human experience, of being.

Any time the ball goes through the basket, and it’s going through consistently, it’s demoralizing for any opponent.

As long as I play ball, I can get any woman I want.