“At the moment, my mother is the only one left in Glasgow, although it’s certainly my home.”

It’s easier for me to get three times the amount of money I really want.

It means that if they misunderstood Comfort and Joy, they misunderstood my other films.

I didn’t think Comfort and Joy was going to be a box-office smash.

Perhaps naively I thought people understand what humor was, that it was invented by the human race to cope with the dark areas of life, problems and terrors.

I’m not fond of any of my films in an intimate way, but Gregory’s Girl would be number 4 on my list.

I’d made these experimental films but I thought the major chore of a filmmaker was to relate to actors.

The movie business is very much like that: people in authority making purely emotional decisions instead of interesting rational ones.

I went to the Glasgow Youth Theatre and they just let me in. But I was so shy that I was there for about six weeks without actually introducing myself.

My two elder sisters married Englishmen and went abroad.

The studio system reminds me of the stock market.

Now the United States has to ensure that Afghanistan does not immediately collapse after being left to itself in 2014.

If left to their own devices a child will achieve.

Keep trying until you have no more chances left.

You get into the cadence in your mind, and it’s hard to make the kind of left turn that you probably need to keep it really interesting.

I am not a Marxist, but I place myself resolutely at the left.

I am a Muslim Arab, in my actions oriented very to the left, in my convictions.

Maybe that’s why I was left out of a lot of things, or why my work was not really understood, because there was no precedent for it.

And I probably would’ve been better off if I’d left myself alone.