Christopher Hampton Quotes

24 quotes in 345 categories

• I became a virtuoso of deceit. It wasn't pleasure I was after, it was knowledge. I consulted the strictest moralists to learn how to appear,…
• Masturbation is the thinking man's television.
• You see, I always divide people into two groups. Those who live by what they know to be a lie, and those who live by…
• It's possible to disagree with someone about the ethics of non-violence without wanting to kick his face in.
• I think there's something degrading about having a husband for a rival. It's humiliating if you fail and commonplace if you succeed.
• I like L.A., but I think whats changed is that the kinds of films I do, the mid-range dramatic film, has become an endangered species.
• I have always thought of sophistication as rather a feeble substitute for decadence.
• To seduce a woman famous for strict morals, religious fervor and the happiness of her marriage: what could possibly be more prestigious?
• If I had to give a definition of capitalism I would say: the process whereby American girls turn into American women.
• You know very well that unless you're a scientist, it's much more important for a theory to be shapely, than for it to be true.
• I find I have to give myself a day when I just shut myself off and do nothing but read.
• I love films. If I'd known how to get into or do it from the word go, I would have done that.
• I'm ashamed to say the first play I saw at the Royal Court was mine.
• If you take a really good book, then the potential is for a really good film. But you've got to get it right.
• It's great to get out of the study and work with real living and breathing people.
• There is a sort of theory that you should adapt bad books because they always make more successful films.
• There was a moment in the early '80s when I wanted to work on films and wanted to live in L.A.
• Often I think the novels I read won't make very good movies - I better not say which I'm looking at for potential films! -…
• Since my adaptation of Ian McEwan's 'Atonement,' I get sent a lot of novels that people think will work as movies. So every now and…
• My problem is I'm a man of no convictions - at least, I think I am.

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