Mike Leigh Quotes

27 quotes in 434 categories

• Resolve was never stronger than in the morning, after the night, when it was never weaker
• Given the choice of Hollywood or poking steel pins in my eyes, I'd prefer steel pins,
• I hope I make films where you walk away . . . with work to do, arguments to have, things to worry about, things to…
• There's a constant drip and trickle of life that goes into one's awareness really and consciousness of things.
• The good thing from my perspective is that nobody puts any pressure on me to say what it's going to be. The backers accept that…
• It creeps up on you and becomes an obsession. It comes out of watching a million movies.
• I do not make films which are prescriptive, and I do not make films that are conclusive. You do not walk out of my films…
• I'm old enough to have friends and contemporaries who have long since retired, and that's their prerogative - enough is enough; it doesn't mean a…
• But actually I make films that I think are extremely sophisticated and cinematic.
• But films should be voyeuristic. What else is a film if you're not snooping into somebody else's lives?
• Given the events of even the 19th century, Zionism was inevitable. Given the events of the 20th century, Israel was inevitable.
• I feel very much ideologically, politically if you like, and emotionally part of the European cinema.
• I think Michael Caine is a perfectly good actor but it's obvious he's not going to be in one of my films.
• I try and create for the audience something that relates to real-life experience.
• I'm developing the stuff all the time. There's a film in my head. I'm imagining a film.
• I've walked out of films. But for every film I've ever walked out of, I've probably walked out of 500 plays.
• It's an unhealthy habit to say that life is what you make of it, and if you want to be happy, then you can be…
• My work is about life as you and I experience it. You're either lucky or you're not lucky; either your relationship works or it doesn't.
• I mean, artistic processes are all about making choices all the time, and the very act of making a choice is the distilling down and…
• I think it's important that nobody forgets that although Hollywood commercially dominates the world cinema, in fact what comes out of the filmmaking here is…

Browse Mike Leigh Quotes by Category