"I see a lot of movies. I love films as a spectator, and that's never obscured by the part of me that does the work myself. I just love going to the movies."

"At a certain age it just became apparent to me that this was probably the work that I would have to do."

"One of the great privileges of having grown up in a middle-class literary English household, but having gone to school in the front lines in Southeast London, was that I became half-street-urchin and half-good-boy at home. I knew that dichotomy was possible."

"Where I come from, it was a heresy to say you wanted to be in movies, leave alone American movies."

"Why does everyone think the future is space helmets, silver foil, and talking like computers, like a bad episode of Star Trek?"

"Sometimes I think it would be easier to avoid old age, to die young, but then you'd never complete your life, would you? You'd never wholly know you."

"Philosophy begins in wonder. And, at the end, when philosophic thought has done its best, the wonder remains."

"Shanghai set out to take over from Hong Kong and I think it's done that. It's got the most amazing futuristic skyline which rivals and even betters Tokyo."