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" 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. "

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" 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. "

" I'm quick to be upset. My feelings are close to the surface. There is not much gap between a thought and a feeling with me. It makes it difficult for some people. I feel too much. "

" Every dramatist will tell you that they know deep down what happened in the course of making that film and to what degree they took steps that were convenient and to what degree they took steps in telling their story that were dishonest. You know in your heart of hearts. "

" When I started writing the screenplay for 'The Queen,' about the aftermath of the death of Princess Diana, both Stephen Frears, the director, and Andy Harries, the producer, begged me not to put Tony Blair in it. "

" You can't ask someone to act middle-aged. Someone has to bring their own fatigue to it. "

" I'm not being presumptuous, I hope, when I say that 'The Crown' is little bit like 'The Godfather.' It is essentially about a family in power and survival. "

" Sometimes it's okay for an audience not to understand everything that's going on. "

" Sometimes if biography is too head-on, it can feel too obvious. "

" Robert Bolt's storytelling is the kind that I grew up with and aspired to. "

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

" 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. "

" Most historians are engaged in fiction. "

" I think I stumbled upon a voice people associate with me with 'The Deal.' "

" It is a fairly serious thing that you're doing if you're writing about people who are still alive and who still have a role in public life. Sometimes you don't want to be reminded too much of the responsibility. "

" The irony of what I do is that the more you reveal someone in their frailties and shortcomings, the more we feel drawn to them and forgiving we feel of them. "

" I wrote 'Hereafter' quickly and without mapping it out too much or being too schematic. As an exercise, I think that was incredibly important. "

" You can be far more challenging, articulate and intelligent writing for television than you can writing for the cinema. "

" I don't understand and don't enjoy sci-fi, and it's just that if people aren't real, and they don't live in a real and recognizable society, I don't understand what to do. "

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

" The real beauty in my professional experience has been friendships and collaborations with filmmakers. "

" I don't want to become too self-conscious - it's why I never read reviews, even the good ones. "

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

" I'm not an artist, and I want to take risks, and when the possibility of failure occurs, it's because the idea is all exciting or interesting as a high wire act, and sometimes you've got to fall off, just by virtue of the fact that you're constantly trying to evolve and do new things. "

" I can't imagine anyone thinking, 'Oh good, it's awards season!' "

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

" The films of which I'm most proud I've written are the ones that pivot on forgiveness. "

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

" 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. "

" I have always cited the decision by director Stephen Frears to shoot 'Mrs. Henderson Presents' before my script of 'The Queen' as the reason for my taking the plunge as a playwright. "