Quotes

I try to stay focused on the work and recognize that I've been very lucky. Maybe it's 'cause I grew up with actors, but I've seen that recognition comes and goes, so all there really is is your family and friends. You have to maintain those constants in your life. Maintain what's beyond your work.

I was never cool as a kid.

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.

I need to be in charge, and that comes from when I was growing up and money was always an issue. I didn't want to feel the fear of poverty again, and I suppose, in that way, I qualify as Thatcher Youth.

I was a pretty heartbroken 13-year-old. That was the year my grandmother died and my parents split up.

I think theater is very much my natural home. But the truth is that the older I've got, and the more I've written film and television, I find it incredibly hard to write theater.

I think film and television - particularly film - you are very isolated as a writer. If you're lucky, you have a good relationship with the director. Then you do make that development and come on set and be part of something. But ultimately, your work is kind of done by the time you come on set.

What's great about the way 'Shame''s been received is that I kept on thinking there's no way this film will be received well since I've had such a good time.

I'm so straight and boring, really. I have two kids and a very nice partner.

I get the 'Guardian' delivered every day and read it very quickly. I like it for both the TV and theatre reviews and because it's very accessible. At the weekend, I get the 'Observer' because I love the food supplement, Observer Food Monthly, and the style section. And I can't resist the News of the World.

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'm the world's worst at reading reviews and then pretending I've read the book.

I used to listen to 'Woman's Hour' every morning, but I've discovered that I can't have words on when I'm working.

Usually when I write a movie, I'm lucky if I get one good actress.

'The Iron Lady' is not a biopic. Phyllida Lloyd and Meryl Streep coined it 'King Lear for girls.'

The joy for me as a writer is that, despite the fact I spend most of my life on my own in a room eating too much chocolate and drinking too much tea, eventually they let me out into the world.

I never know if I'm the builder or architect. The role shifts all the time. But what I have come to conclude is that the script is the muse.

Life experiences inherently change you as a writer. My sense of fury calmed down when I had children and found a loving partner.

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.

The older I get, the more I have to think long and hard about what I need to say and why.

'Splendour' broke through to new territory for me. It exposed my commitment to writing for women: my desire to recognise that they can be as aggressive, violent, mercurial, and complex as men.

I talk to myself all the time - it's something my children have observed in the car.

London does two things for me: it makes me feel connected, and it also makes me feel very isolated and quite lonely at times, and that's someone with two children in their family.

I love the intimacy of TV. I love the fact that you don't necessarily have the pressure of an audience or anyone around watching it - just you and it.

You can't control how an audience responds to something. It's up to them.