Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I'm a cheap date.
I am always running away from something.
Feminism isn't just for women. It's for men.
I like bowling with my kids at Shoreditch House.
I am the most tense, annoying person in the world.
'Tender' is my most strongly autobiographical play.
Even if you've been a coward all your life, death is a heroic act.
I used to believe in God as a child. God, for me, was linked with hope.
You can't control how an audience responds to something. It's up to them.
I'm so straight and boring, really. I have two kids and a very nice partner.
Having a daughter has reawakened my sense of feminism. I want to protect her.
I never get writer's block, but I do have days where I crawl under the duvet.
Writing a film is like giving birth to a baby and then giving it up for adoption.
The thing I love about London is that it is filled with migrants, including myself.
I talk to myself all the time - it's something my children have observed in the car.
I think social media has reinvigorated people's enthusiasm to be active and to engage.
Really, feminism is just about equality, and that's all. It's just saying equal rights.
When people say to me, 'You're so prolific!' it's, like, no, I'm just hopeless with money.
Most of screenplay writing is deciding which voices you want to listen to and take on board.
I love the South Bank: every era of architecture is there, and you can stop, look, and listen.
I always deeply admire people who can stay still in a room and wait for people to come to them.
'The Iron Lady' is not a biopic. Phyllida Lloyd and Meryl Streep coined it 'King Lear for girls.'
My greatest love is my children, and they have inspired me to fight and stand up for the right things.
I was a pretty heartbroken 13-year-old. That was the year my grandmother died and my parents split up.
I literally grew up in drama. I used to watch drama - the catharsis of the play - then see drama at home.
Good writing is often about trying to investigate something you feel is missing and trying to put it back.
I had a huge interior world as a kid: I'd sit on endless wet holidays in Cornwall playing with paper dolls.
I think there is a difference between connecting with a character and supporting and believing their policies.
I spent most of the Seventies living in Newcastle-upon-Tyne and most of the Eighties living in Stoke-on-Trent.
As a writer, you're not even at the party when you work in film. At best, you're the one laying out the canapes.
I think I'm always running away from somewhere, and to me, theatre's always felt like a good place to run away to.
I don't really read that many magazines; I'm more of a browser. I get 'Vanity Fair' quite often if I'm on a train.
I work from about 8:30 A.M. until 7 P.M., five days a week, when I'm not sneaking off to buy another bar of chocolate.
My parents' divorce was very difficult. Divorce is essentially incredibly painful, but it's also an essential part of life.
There is an invisible aspect of being a writer; none of it is about you. It's about your work, and that's what it should be.
To be honest, if I was going to have any kind of fantasy, be it left-wing or otherwise, it wouldn't involve Margaret Thatcher.
Eddie Marsan is just my favourite actor of all time. I love everything he's been in, so it's a dream come true to work with him.
I think that, as a writer, while it's your job to construct stories, you have to navigate your way through them with your heart.
Life experiences inherently change you as a writer. My sense of fury calmed down when I had children and found a loving partner.
I'm quite interested in doing a film about fashion. As someone with no fashion taste whatsoever, I think it would be good for me.
I still always think the greatest moment for me, as a writer, is when I press that button and send the first draft of the script.
I think the great thing about theatre, and if you start in theatre, is that it does build a confidence in poetic themes and ideas.
One of the things I think I can do in my lifetime is stop to remind myself that - and keep affirming that - women can sell movies.
I think age is really changing how I write and the themes that I connect with. But there are also things I'm really intrigued about.
I always say writing a play is like toothache: I find it incredibly painful, and it's only once the play's out that the pain is gone.
Cornelia Parker has inspired a lot of my theatre work. Her art is about points of impact: it's poetic but with a strong literal story.
My mother came to see me in a play when I was a student, and afterwards, I asked her what she thought. She said, 'Honest opinion? No.'
Of all the mediums, theatre is the one where you really need to have something to say - because it's just you, the words, and the space.
Stage is the place of the playwright: you're guided by great actors and directors, but it's the playwright's word on the page that counts.
Most good work is a combination of parts you love and parts you could do better. My constant mantra is, 'Next time, next time, next time.'