In tyranny lies only failure. Empower every man and you will gain strength.

I don't know if I was ever looking for this kind of success- it came along as a by-product of concentrating on what I was doing.

You can't understand it until you experience the simple joy of the first time your son points at a seagull and says 'Duck!'

I am a man that has a lot of respect for faith and spirituality. I think it is important that we talk about religion in today's world.

My bottom line is that I think Ridley Scott is one of the greatest visual artists of our time and I feel very privileged that he wants to work with me, so I go with that flow.

I think that if there are problems in journalism they're created by journalists... the trivialisation of the news and the sort of snyed, cynical allowance of untruth to be in a newspaper because it might be titillating.

I can rely on me [being a director], unlike some actors. I never got anything less than what I needed from the lead actor.

Once you're a parent, male or female, every single thing that happens in your life is seen through the prism of being a parent.

I've loved Danielle Spencer since 1989 - that's never going to change - and that's one of those things where I stare at her and go, 'How did it fail?' I still can't work it out, because my feelings for her have never changed.

What we do in life echoes in eternity

If there's anything about someone's life that's important enough to make a movie about it, I have to take responsibility to get all of it right. It's a huge responsibility.

Perhaps it is good to have a beautiful mind, but an even greater gift is to discover a beautiful heart.

We can't repay our good luck with bad grace. It invites darkness.

Do I think Cate Blanchett is the most spectacular creature that ever walked the planet? Yes, I do.

I'm not one of those fellows that is just going to have a psuedo-middling relationship.

I have a new horse. I get her to come to me from half a mile away. With just a simple call. That's because she knows that when she's with me, she's taken care of. She trusts me.

At 49, I find it a little bit difficult to run these days. I've got grade four tears in both Achilles, shin splints, I got no cartilage the toes in my right foot, I've got bone marrow edemas under both knees, I've got one degenerating hip - that's the problem you get.

I want to make movies that pierce people's hearts and touch them in some way, even if it's just for the night while they're in the cinema; in that moment, I want to bring actual tears to their eyes and goosebumps to their skin.

I like villains because there's something so attractive about a committed person - they have a plan, an ideology, no matter how twisted. They're motivated.

The important thing to me is that I'm not driven by people's praise and I'm not slowed down by people's criticism. I'm just trying to work at the highest level I can.

I knew a man once who said, "Death smiles at us all. All a man can do is smile back.

To the ocean. That sounds right. Where the waves roll in slowly and there’s always a roar and you can’t fall anywhere. You’re already there.

I am a pioneer now, looking onto a promised land.

Your common sense is nothing more than the voices of thousands and thousands of these ghosts from the past. Ghosts and more ghosts. Ghosts trying to find their place among the living.