Nicolas Roeg

“Men and women's needs and desires overlap but go in different directions as well.”

“When you admire someone's work, you are amazed by who you think they are.”

“A lot of my movies have come to be thought about only years after the fact, and I'm sad about that but also happy about it in a way, as it's given them longevity.”

“How can you judge one film against another?”

“We can't get our youth back.”

“I like getting up early, but I haven't got a routine - mainly because I never have a clear idea of what day of the week it is.”

“I've always admired the tradition of storytellers who sat in the public market and told their stories to gathered crowds. They'd start with a single premise and talk for hours - the notion of one story, ever-changing but never-ending.”

“I love that perhaps we don't see the things that are there because we have no yardstick to see things by, to compare them.”

“I've used mirrors in a lot of movies. I think the mirror is an extraordinary thing, also the reflective, a reflection in water, etc.”

“I've been told my movies are difficult to market.”

“Marketing is such a key issue; in fact, the marketing department is often involved in the approval of scripts now.”

“Oscars are won with two or three shots only, because if it's really beautifully photographed, you don't really notice it until the astounding moment emphasizes it.”

“I've always felt that, although Truffaut was greatly revered and admired, at the same time, in terms of film and how much he loved film, he was underestimated.”

“I think I've never really liked the idea of genre, a film that follows the rules of a genre.”

“Film remains completely mystical and mysterious to me.”

“I wouldn't like to be a non-believer in anything.”

“Grief is an emotion that's almost unplayable because you're in a separate emotional state; it's an inconsolable emotion.”

“When my sister and I were very young, my father used to tell us fairy stories that he'd made up. My mother was always telling him that he should write them down, but he would say, 'Well, they've all been done before. There are so many blooming books in the world - why should I write another one?'”

“'Eureka' was very bad timing. The early 1980s: Reagan and Thatcher were in, greed was good, and here was a film about the richest man in the world who still couldn't be happy. Politically and sociologically, it was out of step.”

“Children's finger-painting came under the arts, but movies didn't.”