Anthony McCarten

One of the great things about Churchill is that he had the guts to say the unpalatable, to level with the people,…

— Anthony McCarten

At 17, I wanted to be a rock star.

— Anthony McCarten

Reading is essential to human life. When the last reader dies, humanity will be at an end.

— Anthony McCarten

There's a really fine line between artistic license and artistic licentiousness. And history is a lousy filmmaker. It doesn't give you all…

— Anthony McCarten

If we did not have the impulse and ability to believe in the impossible, we would not have religion, democracy, or marriage.

— Anthony McCarten

My experience is, the writer I was when I began was only a fraction of what I feel capable of doing now.…

— Anthony McCarten

My routine is to create activities for myself unrelated to writing that allow little time for writing. This means that when I…

— Anthony McCarten

I was born to a very large family, one of 7 kids. I grew up with carnivals and chaos all around me,…

— Anthony McCarten

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

— Anthony McCarten

Since my student days, I'd been a fan of those books with titles like 'Great Speeches that Changed the World,' as I…

— Anthony McCarten

“Finally, it's not the lies we tell others that do the most damage, it's those we tell ourselves. From this all troubles…

— Anthony McCarten

We're living in extraordinary times, all the time. The issues that assail us are perennial. They haven't changed since the Greeks picked…

— Anthony McCarten

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…

— Anthony McCarten

I still present myself as a New Zealander, answering people's questions about New Zealand and contributing in my own unlikely way to…

— Anthony McCarten

I have three favorite cities: London, Wellington, and Los Angeles. What makes them so good? The friends who live there.

— Anthony McCarten

Most writers live in self-imposed exile, even when they don't leave their country. They prefer the undiscovered country inside their own heads.

— Anthony McCarten

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

— Anthony McCarten

“And that's when he saw, at last, why it was so sweet to be infinitesimal: because as we become nothing, beneath the…

— Anthony McCarten

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

— Anthony McCarten

When I grew up, my house contained only two books: the Bible and the 'Edmonds' cookbook. We were a working-class household. Books…

— Anthony McCarten

Be more ambitious. Do your homework. There's no easy way around this.

— Anthony McCarten

If it's correct to say that there is a closing of minds around the world, story is one of the most powerful…

— Anthony McCarten

I am so superstitious that I think even discussing this subject is dangerous and will probably bring me terrible luck. Having been…

— Anthony McCarten

The people I'm drawn to are sort of self-created. They came from backgrounds where not much was expected of them, necessarily.

— Anthony McCarten

There is the cult of the actor and of the director, and there's even been the cult of the celebrity chef and…

— Anthony McCarten