James Ivory

“See, nobody understood how we were able to make a film like 'A Room With a View' so cheaply, for about $3.2 million, and have it look as good as it did.”

“But our writer, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala - it was very much in her mind. After we had done 'A Room With a View' and 'Maurice,' she urged us to think about 'Howards End' as another candidate for adaptation.”

“I found in making and directing films that the less you have voiceover, the better it is.”

“There's a cabin in Oregon I go to, which belonged to my parents. It's never been winterized. It's not a place you want to be after the first of October or before the first of June. I go for about three weeks every summer.”

“I've never had to search for themes. My films just come naturally out of my interest.”

“I like a lot of good dialogue if it is well-acted.”

“The writer, Ruth Jhabvala, livedin India but was German. My partner Ismail Merchant was from Bombay but was educated in England and he had a different view on the world. Probably they had to contend with some sort of Oregonian-ness in me that they didn't understand and didn't know where it was coming from.”

“It's important to see the work of as many directors as possible but you must not become self-conscious. You have to accept that your first attempts are going to be quite rough compared to the finished works of great masters.”

“My father built me a theatre behind the house where I could put on plays. Dear me, I'm making it sound a bit grand, and it wasn't an amphitheatre or anything like that, just a little place with a roll-up curtain box and I'm sure the plays were childish lopsided things.”

“This may sound corny, but I've always liked to make things that were beautiful.”

“I was in New York one day, and this guy ran off a bus, grabbed me, and told me that 'Maurice' had changed his life. I've also had it many, many times in England.”