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" I just feel that if I'm English and writing about an American president, I have got to have someone on my side who can help me out when I'm lapsing into lazy or obvious European skepticism. "

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" For a younger generation to imagine a time where there was no security at airports - going around the world in the bar of a jumbo jet, 'Tell the plane to wait, I'm running late!' - there is something very Austin Powers about David Frost, a man who, in all seriousness, would approach women in a safari suit, with sideburns. "

Peter Morgan

Man

Generation

World

" I make a point of not reading reviews because of the old adage, if you read the good ones then you have to read the bad ones, and if you read the bad ones, you have to, you know... And also because it's a very, very bewildering and exposing thing. "

" Most historians are engaged in fiction. "

" I am drawn to characters so full of internal contradictions. Idi Amin was one. I loved writing him. "

" If you have distance from the events, then your story can work as an analogy or parable rather than its literal narrative. "

" Most of the things I write, I write on spec. And because I write them on spec, there's less interference. Because there's less interference, they tend to be better. "

" I do have an innate understanding of where a story should or shouldn't go, in a way that I don't think can be taught. "

Peter Morgan

Understanding

Story

" Generally, I read nonfiction. There's very little fiction that I enjoy enough to spend my time reading. I am generally a nonfiction guy. "

" As a child, I grew up the son of German immigrant parents, so I grew up being teased and called 'Fritz' at school. When I married my wife and went to live in Vienna, I was teased for being a Brit. "

" I prefer my writing to do all the talking for me. "

" I've done a lot of work in Hollywood and theatre, but to be honest, the biggest pleasure I've ever got is from the TV single plays I've written. It's a format where you don't mind saying, 'I want to tackle some important themes head on.' "

" There were a couple of things I lost sleep over with the play 'Frost/Nixon,' so I went back and addressed them a bit more in the film. "

" Some of the things I have written about are a way of connecting with my father - I know he knew who Idi Amin was, and I know he knew who Longford was. And I know he knew who Nixon was, because shortly before he died, I talked to him about Watergate. "

" I don't think of the crown as this glamorous thing. It's this murderous, bejeweled thing, the crown. "

" I quite like the idea - just as an abstract idea - of 12 people's collective life experience and wisdom being this formidable thing. People say juries can be led - I think 12 people from different backgrounds, different races, different genders, different ages, it's hard to hoodwink. "

" There are people who are bound journalistically to a code of ethics that means they can't quote something that isn't sourced, whereas what I do is entirely unsourced. I effectively fictionalise history and yet somehow aim at a greater truth. "

" By nature of the job, most actors are striking, remarkable, and alpha. "

" I'm constantly having to check my conscience about what I'm writing and the responsibility of what I'm saying. "

" It's important to me what the viewers think. "

" Ambition interests me because it's such a surefire indicator of damage. "

Peter Morgan

Interests

Damage

" Everything I write, I've written the first draft in Austria. "

" It is devastating, losing a parent. I don't really know what the effect is, but I suppose people might call me an ambitious man, and I'd say that an ambitious man is a damaged man. "

" People bang on all the time about whether what I've done is the truth or not. Well, to me, history is just a series of elaborate fictions. "

Peter Morgan

People

History

" For 'Frost/Nixon,' everyone I spoke to told the story their way. Even people in the room tell different versions. There's no one truth about what happened in those interviews, so I feel very relaxed about bringing my imagination to the piece. God knows everyone else has. "

" There are many, many things in my work that need redoing - never the structure. "

" Authorised royal biographers are so straitjacketed, deferential, fawning, and unadventurous that they can only be after a knighthood. Or they're completely scurrilous and insolent, like Andrew Morton or Paul Burrell. "

Peter Morgan

After

Insolent

" In my peaceful moments, I yearn to write a bank heist like the one in 'Heat.' "

Peter Morgan

Heat

Peaceful

" Self-destruction is such an interesting thing for a dramatist, and what's particular to Nixon is how human the failings were that led to his downfall. "

" Belief in God is so deranged that it makes absolutely no sense, but it holds people together somehow. "

" I am not a politics wonk. I like the idea of my writing reflecting more about who I am or other people. "