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

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.

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

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.

The root of the evil is not the construction of new, more dreadful weapons. It is the spirit of conquest.

God’s grace does not come to people who morally outperform others, but to those who admit their failure to perform and who acknowledge their need for a Savior.

Those who best know human nature will acknowledge most fully what a strength light hearted nonsense give to a hard working man

I abominate a humble man, but yet I love to perceive that a man acknowledges the superiority of my sex, and youth and all that kind of thing. . .

There is very little distance between being a fool and being wise; they are extremely close. When we are really, truly fools, when we actually acknowledge our foolishness, then we are way ahead. We are not even in the process of becoming wise – we are already wise.

I have this thing about being acknowledged and accepted by institutions.

It feels very special, but I acknowledge that the old master, Nigel Mansell, took his 14 poles from only 16 races.

The most important quality in a leader is that of being acknowledged as such. All leaders whose fitness is questioned are clearly lacking in force.