Steven Knight

“Whenever I went to L.A. the first thing people said in the meeting, no matter what it was about, was how much they loved 'Peakys.' So Hollywood was really going for it which is always a good start. Also Snoop Dogg is a big fan.”

“From the age of about 8 to the age of about 15, I was obsessed with Native Americans.”

“In Britain, when the working class are summoned for fiction, it's 'isn't it a shame, isn't it a pity, isn't it awful, the terribly poor things... ' whereas from within, it's nothing like that. It's fantastic, it's glamorous, it's terrible and good the same as it is for everybody.”

“There's a convention in English stuff that if something is more than 100 years old, people have to say 'do not' instead of 'don't. They have to say 'will not' instead of 'won't.' People are speaking in a way that is not accessible or normal. And people didn't ever speak like that.”

“The film business seems to attract rules more than any other business. I don't know why it does. I think it's because there's so much money at stake.”

“In the States a lot of Hispanic and black audiences are gravitating towards 'Peaky Blinders.' A mate of went into a bar in Santa Monica and sent me a photo of four blokes dressed as Peakies - they meet every week for a 'Peaky Blinders' evening.”

“In terms of the symbolism, I think that if you do it right, writing is a bit like dreaming.”

“The things that are considered to be respectable have their roots in unrespectable things.”

“The great thing about America is that people take its history and mythologise it.”

“I'm a big Birmingham City supporter and seeing the fans dressed as Peaky Blinders is one of my proudest moments.”

“I will never unravel the mystery of how a script gets into the hands of certain people.”

“There have been times when I've shaved twice in the same morning because I've forgotten I've shaved already.”

“So many American and international producers want to shoot in the U.K. because of our crew base and tax incentives.”

“It's good sometimes to have a character that starts as one thing and ends as another, but James Bond, Hercules, these are pretty enduring stories.”

“I want to be influenced by the world not TV or film.”

“I never set out to write a script that is 'topical.'”

“With TV, your structure is determined by the series not the episode. You can have incident without consequence to the character, but keep your eye on the ticking clock of the series.”

“I write about what worries me and, hopefully, things worry me a little bit earlier than they do some other people, purely because I am a writer and it is my job to go out there and be worried by things.”

“When you think 'Peaky Blinders,' when it first began it got mixed reviews and people didn't know what to do with it, and it was like: 'Why is there modern music on this?' So I think whenever you do something different you're going to get that response.”

“If I choose to direct something, it's because I don't think it would get accepted.”