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" 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. "

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" My experience is, I do a table reading, and it's literally like it's written in colossal neon lights what's wrong with the screenplay. "

" I have a great deal of compassion for those in public life and what we have done to them. "

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

" 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. "

" 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 have no directing ambition whatsoever. And as long as I meet filmmakers like Tom Hooper, Stephen Frears, and others who allow that collaboration, I can't see why I would ever want to direct. "

" The film 'The Queen' came about with a producer saying to me that he wanted me to write about the circumstances behind Diana's death. I think he was hoping that I would come up with some journalistic scoop that would identify an MI5 covert plot. "

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

" There is no inherent contradiction between being right-wing and being intelligent. "

" 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. "

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

" I insist to this day that if you read the screenplay to 'The Queen,' it leaves you in no doubt that we considered her an isolated, out-of-touch, cold, emotionally inaccessible, overprivileged, deluded woman, heading an institution that should immediately be dismantled in any free and fair society. "

" 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.' "

" I'm not good at fantasy, no. I have been offered stuff, and I can't get my head around it. "

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

" No family is complete without an embarrassing uncle. "

" I don't think I'm an unhappy person. It's just an intensity, not a depressive thing. It's just not having enough layers of skin. It's exhausting. "

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

" If you don't belong somewhere, that outsider status you have gives you perspective. Of course, another word for outsider is 'exile,' and that's not fun at all. "

" I'm very happy for others to engage in conjecture, but if I was ever conscious of what I'm thinking about when I'm writing, oh my God, I'd be totally lost. "

" As a European from a different, younger generation, the trauma that was Nixon's presidency never really had a hold over me. For one thing, I never voted for him. "

" Movies feel like work, and reading fiction feels like work, whereas reading nonfiction feels like pleasure. "

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

" It's madness to hand in a script to a director, leave them alone, and for the director not to want the writer there with rehearsals and the shoot. "

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

" In a way, I think of the press as my colleagues. I don't want to throw hand grenades at people who do something that's pretty similar to what I do. But at the same time, we all need to take ourselves seriously and be responsible as professionals. And there was a collective failure in the treatment of Christopher Jefferies. "

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

" 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. "