"I am, in fact, Superman. Every morning I wake up and go into a telephone booth and change my costume, and then go to work."

"I spent a little time in Germany as a schoolboy learning German, and it's a country I knew very well, spent a lot of time in. I knew the history very well. I've always wanted to do a piece of work about the post-war period, of one sort or another."

"I love changing. I hate it when people try to box me in to a relationship or in a work context. Any situation where I feel boxed in freaks me out. And I feel the need to reinvent myself or I'll get bored."

"I never want to make a film. I don't wake up in the morning going, 'Ooh, I'd really love to be on set making a film today'. I'm aware that other contemporary film directors perceive film-making as what they do, as what they have to do. But I would hope that I am more catholic in my tastes."

"Conversation would be vastly improved by the constant use of four simple words: I do not know."

"People like to think of you as a certain person, or a certain type of person, and they do love to give you a label. We like luggage labels, and we like people labels."

"Experience is the child of thought, and thought is the child of action."

"I don't really do pranks any more. I have a laugh in the dressing room here, where it's safe, and the guys don't go to the papers and tell them what I've done."