The English countryside is the most staggeringly beautiful place. I can't spend as much time there as I like, but I like everything about it. I like fishing, I like clay- pigeon shooting.

I'm not politically motivated. I used to be - passionately. I used to be very Left wing. Then I went very Right wing, and now I rest somewhere in the middle.

I love fatherhood. I could bang on about kids forever.

I think there's a natural system in your own head about how much violence the scene warrants. It's not an intellectual process, it's an instinctive process.

In fact, 95% of the people in my films have been nothing less than a pleasure to work with.

I like to think that we've got a plan, so let's stick to it. That said, once we've stuck to it, we're allowed as much improvisation as anyone cares to indulge themselves in.

It's not easy to strap yourself down to a desk and bash on a keyboard when you know you can direct lots of films, because directing films is fun and interactive and gregarious. Writing isn't.

I suppose directing on set is the most fun because it's a good crack and you feel you're on the battlefield whereas writing is a fairly solitary undertaking.

We're quite volatile as individuals, but that doesn't work exponentially when we are together. Relationships are about eating humble pie.

The English countryside is the most staggeringly beautiful place. I can't spend as much time there as I like, but I like everything about it. I like fishing, I like clay- pigeon shooting.

All the other guys I think had a scream on Lock, Stock. They just had a laugh and a crack, and thought it would never come out; they were just having a good time. On this one, I felt that.

They're all based on factual characters. Well, a good amount of them. That's why I was attracted to this genre anyways, because these characters are so large and cartoonish, they're like caricatures, I just felt that there had to be a film made about them.

After Lock, Stock, all these really nasty small town characters came knocking at my door trying to tell me stories, and somehow I ended up with this guy whose brother was feeding people to pigs, and that's what he did to get rid of people.

You get a different kick out of all aspects of filmmaking.

The best thing to do is find one person in your life and try to love them unconditionally. If you've accomplished that, you've accomplished a lot.

What I liked about American movies when I was a kid was that they're sort of larger than life and I think I'm still suffering from that reaction.

Other than the fact that I like a country house, I can't think of anything I'd want to spend my money on.

We can all be conned but at what point do we realize that we're being conned and to what point do we allow ourselves to be conned?

We are not that flash, me or the missus. In fact, we are quite low-maintenance.

It's about not letting the internal enemy, the real enemy, have his way because the more he does the stronger he becomes. The film's about the devastating results that can manifest from the internal enemy being unbridled and allowed to unleash chaos.

On Lock, Stock, we didn't know where the money for shooting the next day was coming from.

Yeah, I'm certainly a lot more confident on this one than I was one the last one, which I think can be a good thing and a bad thing. But, at least I slept while making this film.

I'm not under too much of an illusion of how smart or un-smart I am because filmmaking ultimately is about teamwork.

The idea is that that there is no such thing as an external enemy.

My principal job is to make interesting and entertaining films, and I'm not proud of which format or which particular technique I use. I just wanted the film to look good.

I can understand that the whole world is interested in my wife Madonna. That's even why I married her.

I got into film-making because I was interested in making entertaining movies, which I felt there was a lack of.

We always have a take that's 'one for fun', so once you've got what you need, you can do what you like. Something does occasionally pop out of that tree. I'm always open to ideas.

I got too fed up with films that didn't make you think. I liked the idea of one that you'd have to be dancing around with. I like my mind to be engaged when I watch a film.

Well, what I try to do is throw as much mud on the wall as I possibly can and just see what sticks, what shines as quirky or more interesting that the others, and I try to cling onto that one, somehow join a link from there to there.

I'd like to work with the missus, but there's nothing in the pipeline at the moment.

I like death. I'm a big fan of it.

Previously, on Lock, Stock, I went to bed at two in the morning and woke up at five in the morning, and on this one I was known to nod off on the set occasionally.

If somebody has a better idea than me, I'll take it if it surpasses what we have on the page because at the end of the day, it's me that takes the credit anyway!

Jake Green isn't just Jake Green. Jake represents all of us. The colour green is the central column of the spectrum and the name Jake has all sorts of numerical values. All things come back to him within the film's world of cons and games.

I am not involved in any 'issues' because it's too sensitive for me - or my wife - to get involved. Every time we express an opinion it becomes a whole thing in itself. And the whole purpose of living in the countryside was to get away from hundreds of people. My wife fell off a horse, and suddenly there are hundreds of people around.

Sugar is responsible for a lot of deaths. Arguably more than crack cocaine.

'Batman' took 10 months to film, and by the time I stopped working on it, it took a long time before my English accent came out again. I was actually having to try for it.

English football has just had a transfer window imposed for the first time, so it will be interesting to see how managers cope with the squads they have until it re-opens.

Even if you do learn to speak correct English, whom are you going to speak it to?

Sometimes I feel I can't quite master my written and spoken Spanish, because I'm too much a student of English. I would need another lifetime to learn it.

It has since been agreed that speeches given in English will be translated into French and vice versa, and even into German and Italian when necessary. No doubt translations into Esperanto will also soon be in demand.

I'm learning English at the moment. I can say 'Big Ben', 'Hello Rodney', 'Tower Bridge' and 'Loo'.

No people in the world can make you feel so small as the English.

The one great principle of English law is to make business for itself.

Apart from a few simple principles, the sound and rhythm of English prose seem to me matters where both writers and readers should trust not so much to rules as to their ears.

The English people, a lot of them, would not be able to understand a word of spoken Shakespeare. There are people who do and I'm not denying they exist. But it's a far more philistine country than people think.

The English are polite by telling lies. The Americans are polite by telling the truth.

In English we must use adjectives to distinguish the different kinds of love for which the ancients had distinct names.