Anthony McCarten

“Truth is seldom appreciated and never understood, whereas a flattering lie is always appreciated and instantly understood.”

“At some point early on, I realized that three of the greatest speeches ever delivered were by Winston Churchill, and they were written and delivered within a four-week period of each other.”

“One of the real ways out of conflict is humour. It builds bridges; it's a weapon against rigid ideology, narrow thinking, intolerance.”

“The more I read about the rules the great orators used, the more I realised, of course, this is how you stir people's hearts, and you persuade and cajole and move people out of fixed positions. The techniques are quite menacingly easy.”

“Since my student days, I'd been a fan of those books with titles like 'Great Speeches that Changed the World,' as I loved the idea that the right person with the right words at the right time could really make a difference.”

“There is the cult of the actor and of the director, and there's even been the cult of the celebrity chef and gardener, but there has never been a cult of the screenwriter. But I'm happy about that because what I crave - in a completely venal way - is creative opportunities, not recognition.”

“At 17, I wanted to be a rock star.”

“When I grew up, my house contained only two books: the Bible and the 'Edmonds' cookbook. We were a working-class household. Books were a poor second to the television, which was always on, usually with me in front of it.”

“My experience is, the writer I was when I began was only a fraction of what I feel capable of doing now. Don't stand on that threshold saying, 'I'm uncertain about my talent.' You can grow that part of yourself.”

“The New Zealand sense of humor is tough and realistic. Jokes are not surreal; they are about life and death and tough decisions.”

“It's impossible to make a living in the arts unless you make a fortune. There's almost no in-between. Writers are either broke or rolling in it. Oddly, you can't tell them apart.”

“I'm still always surprised that anyone might be interested in my work or me.”

“Commercial success and quality are not necessarily allied.”

“My routine is to create activities for myself unrelated to writing that allow little time for writing. This means that when I do get the chance to write, it is like a stolen luxury, something clandestine and almost forbidden.”

“If it's correct to say that there is a closing of minds around the world, story is one of the most powerful agents of reviving the conversation between ideas. Ultimately, that's all stories are trying to do - open the conversation. They cannot give a proscription. It's not clairvoyant art.”

“I often find that writers who disavow the importance of an ending are just not very good at endings.”