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" 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. "

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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. "

Peter Morgan

Lazy

Writing

American

" 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. "

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

Peter Morgan

Heat

Peaceful

" If you think about what you do, if you become self-conscious about it, you've got to be very careful. Because I really like to write without self-awareness of what I'm doing. "

Peter Morgan

Self-Awareness

Think

" 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

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

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

Peter Morgan

Storytelling

Kind

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

Peter Morgan

Interests

Damage

" 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. "

" 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

" 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

" 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. "

" There's nothing wrong with anybody from any other country having a perspective on the British royal family. It would be interesting. But I just doubt that they would get the dialogue right. "

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

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

" I'm not a vindictive person. But I do want to shine a light on human frailty and heroism in equal measure. "

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

" Most historians are engaged in fiction. "

" I watch drama on DVD because I can't stand ad breaks. "

Peter Morgan

Because

Breaks

" 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. "

Peter Morgan

Reveal

Someone

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

" I wrote a draft of 'Playboy' for Warner Brothers, and it was impossible to really be independent of Hugh Hefner. In the end, Hugh Hefner was unable to take the back seat required to be able to write something about him that I felt I could do. "

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

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

" 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. "

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

" Truth is an illusory notion. "

" 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. "