The studio system reminds me of the stock market.

My two elder sisters married Englishmen and went abroad.

I went to the Glasgow Youth Theatre and they just let me in. But I was so shy that I was there for about six weeks without actually introducing myself.

The movie business is very much like that: people in authority making purely emotional decisions instead of interesting rational ones.

I didn't think Comfort and Joy was going to be a box-office smash.

The studio system reminds me of the stock market.

Perhaps naively I thought people understand what humor was, that it was invented by the human race to cope with the dark areas of life, problems and terrors.

I was quite surprised how easily people wanted to pigeonhole things I've done.

It's easier for me to get three times the amount of money I really want.

There are things that Scotsmen get and other people don't get in the dialogue. Scottish characters can be pinpointed by a phrase, targeted very quickly.

I'm not fond of any of my films in an intimate way, but Gregory's Girl would be number 4 on my list.

I'd made these experimental films but I thought the major chore of a filmmaker was to relate to actors.

At the moment, my mother is the only one left in Glasgow, although it's certainly my home.

I don't really enjoy filming.

It means that if they misunderstood Comfort and Joy, they misunderstood my other films.

It took me 20 years of hard training to get the physique I have today. What you need is what I had – belief in yourself!

Success is not assured, but America is resolute: this is the best chance for peace we are likely to see for some years to come - and we are acting to help Israelis and Palestinians seize this chance.

If there should prove to be one real, living Free State Democrat in Kansas, I suggest that it might be well to catch him and stuff and preserve his skin as an interesting specimen of that soon-to-be-extinct variety of the genus Democrat.

But even so, I still get nervous before I go onstage.

I want to be Kanye and do what he does musically. I'm very fearless.

To the men in Washington, the world is just a giant Monopoly board.

Science affects all our ways of thinking about the world: both the physical world, which, if I may make so bold, is easy to understand because it is regular and follows simple laws, and also the social world, which is more baffling and less predictable.

Bad performances can happen and are not that serious - even with new players. You can't, say, sell him, get a new one.

My day is spent hiding from people.

I never imagined when I began writing in the early 1960s I'd become professional and my life would be transformed.

I am still in shock and awe at being fired.

In Old Europe and Ancient Crete, women were respected for their roles in the discovery of agriculture and for inventing the arts of weaving and pottery making.

Oftentimes when you see adaptations of books you like, you're let down. As an author, you assume that they are going to suck. A little bit of hope is dangerous.

This is the deal: we are happy to single out people as superior just as long as they don't accept the description themselves. We want heroes and idols, but we also want egalitarianism, and that requires proclamations of humility from our gods.

Meryl Streep is awesome.

Unfortunately, I never knew my father and when I did, it was very briefly.

Contrary to what President Obama said in his inaugural address, going on Medicare and food stamps does not strengthen us. Just ask people who are fourth-generation welfare recipients.

I could have beat Obama.

With my plays, when the lights go down, at least the audience isn't thinking, 'Oh, God, two more hours of this.'

I thought it would be my one and only exhibition, so I decided to call it My Major Retrospective.

What frustrates me about some high-concept shows is that they don't give you information until sweeps, but 'Jericho's' audience will get a large piece of the puzzle every week.

I've never been interested enough to have a career trajectory. I've never had any ambition or thought of what I should be doing or had any idea of what I'd like to do. Never. And still don't. And if something comes along, I say 'Fine.'

Um, I'm just naturally super-funny. No, not really. I've never been in The Groundlings or anything.

Sometimes, unfortunately, hatred is more powerful than progress.