What I learned about stammering was that, when as a young child you lose the confidence of anyone who wants to listen to you, you lose confidence in your voice and the right to speech. And a lot of the therapy was saying, 'You have a right to be heard.'

I think we all have blocks between us and the best version of ourselves, whether it's shyness, insecurity, anxiety, whether it's a physical block, and the story of a person overcoming that block to their best self. It's truly inspiring because I think all of us are engaged in that every day.

When I was growing up my mother would say, 'Your dad may have to learn about being a father because he lost his own and that would have affected him'.

In 'The King's Speech,' patriotism is utterly contained within a historical moment, the third of September, 1939, where the aggressor is clear, the fight is clear, it hasn't become complicated over time.

After my grandfather's plane took enemy fire, he was denied permission to land at the first available airstrip. In that classic British bureaucratic way, they said he had to go back to your own airbase in the Midlands. They crashed between the coast and the airfield.

I feel connected to the Second World War because my father lost his father in that war. So, through my dad and the effect it had on him of losing his father young, I always felt connected to the war. It goes back years, but it still feels to me as if we're completely living in it.

I think I would say 'The King's Speech' is surprisingly funny, in fact the audiences in London, Toronto, LA, New York commented there's more laughter in this film than in most comedies, while it is also a moving tear-jerker with an uplifting ending.

I decided to be a filmmaker when I was 12. I had utter clarity that this would be my life.

The thing that fascinates me is that the way I came to film and television is extinct. Then there were gatekeepers, it was prohibitively expensive to make a film, to be a director you had to be an entrepreneur to raise money.

What I learned about stammering was that, when as a young child you lose the confidence of anyone who wants to listen to you, you lose confidence in your voice and the right to speech. And a lot of the therapy was saying, 'You have a right to be heard.'

The hardest part of directing is the choosing. Unlike an actor who can do a variety of work, it is a year of your life, you can't afford to get it wrong.

Well, I'm half Australian, half English and I live in London. That is the only reason I came upon this story. My Australian mother, Meredith Hooper, was invited in late 2007 by some Australian friends to make up a token Australian audience in a tiny fringe theater play reading of an unproduced, unrehearsed play called 'The King's Speech.'

With the coming of radio as a mass medium, suddenly the world changed. It became about, 'can this leader project emotional connection through the way he speaks on the radio?' And the anxiety about whether he could do that, we've inherited.

My dad said, 'The thing that I was told that was really helpful was that I mustn't be afraid of the things I was afraid of when I was five years old'. The shock of his childhood had put him in this defensive crouch against the world, and he needed to know that he had a nice wife and kids and it wasn't the same any more.

American cinema tends to express a patriotic relationship to national identity on a regular basis.

American movies are often very good at mining those great underlying myths that make films robustly travel across class, age, gender, culture.

I appear to be drawn to iconic characters and what they reflect back to our cultures.

I come from the kind of family where work is work; my parents always taught me that it's better to be doing something than sitting around doing nothing.

I find that after a screening, people really want to come and tell you what they feel.

I love the incredible variety of demands directing makes on you, from the entrepreneur to the hustler to the deal-maker to the writer; to directing actors and the camera and working with music, sound, marketing and promotion. It uses so many sides of your brain.

I think English film is very embarrassed by patriotism, generally.

I think directors can become overly infatuated by gilt and gold, and the word 'lavish' and everything being magnificent.

I think the thumb print on the throat of many people is childhood trauma that goes unprocessed and unrecognized.

If you look at Shakespeare's history plays, what the setting of monarchy allows is this extraordinary intensification of emotions and predicament.

Some films clearly seem to divide people. And I do think there's something incredibly exciting about the commonality of us as human beings, which some films are lucky enough to tap into.

The more uncompromisingly specific you are the more you end up touching the bigger universal truths.

What's fascinating about the Australians is they have this quality that they are impervious to majesty. They're not awed.

With the coming of radio as a mass medium, suddenly the world changed. It became about, 'Can this leader project emotional connection through the way he speaks on the radio?' And the anxiety about whether he could do that, we've inherited.

A British villain never loses their sense of humour.

When I tested for Billy Budd, I had that kind of confidence that comes with the certainty that you're not going to get something. I was very rough around the edges.

Confidence comes from hours and days and weeks and years of constant work and dedication.

By the way, the secret of speaking French is confidence. Whether you are right or wrong, you don't hesitate.

If you improve a teacher's self-esteem, confidence, communication skills or stress levels, you improve that teacher's overall effectiveness across the curriculum.

Any new producer starting up is to get investors' confidence. Investors are still very very wary of anything to do with the arts world.

A business of high principle generates greater drive and effectiveness because people know that they can do the right thing decisively and with confidence.

False shame accompanies a man that is poor, shame that either harms a man greatly or profits him; shame is with poverty, but confidence with wealth.

As a scouting department, with the confidence we have in our player development, if a guy has the potential that we think they have and the makeup and they stay healthy, we think they will be a productive Major Leaguer. We take a lot of pride in that.

Attempt easy tasks as if they were difficult, and difficult as if they were easy; in the one case that confidence may not fall asleep, in the other that it may not be dismayed.

I have great confidence in the universal value and in basic human rights and I have great confidence that referenda will eventually take root and become part of our daily lives in Taiwan.

Well, I am a Republican, and I would run as a Republican. And I have a lot of confidence in the Republican Party. I don't have a lot of confidence in the president. I think what's happening to this country is unbelievably bad. We're no longer a respected country.

I think it is important to maintain a sense of self and confidence, not letting either falter for the sake of a particular part or project, no matter how great it might be.

Union of religious sentiments begets a surprising confidence.

We were given clear concrete tools. The course did a great job demystifying the art of fiction writing and fostering confidence. The instructor brought complex concepts down to earth. I will miss coming here every week.

Conceit is bragging about yourself. Confidence means you believe you can get the job done.

Confidence in golf means being able to concentrate on the problem at hand with no outside interference.

It is obvious that putting the Arab-Israeli dispute on a resolution track would be an important element of overcoming the confidence problem in the region.

Health is the greatest possession. Contentment is the greatest treasure. Confidence is the greatest friend. Non-being is the greatest joy.

I think that feeling that if one believed absolutely in any cause, then one must have the confidence, the self-certainty, to go through with that particular course of action.

The notion of a universality of human experience is a confidence trick and the notion of a universality of female experience is a clever confidence trick.