Quotes

[about his working relationship with Anthony Hopkins on Hitchcock (2012) ] He's been just a remarkable human being and I think, once again in my experience, that the remarkably talented are also... it's because they are remarkable people.

It's not what's underfoot but in your veins. My father was a working man. He did all manner of things to house and feed his wife and three boys: sold encyclopedias, insurance, was a steamfitter. One day, at thirty-four years of age, on a construction site in twenty below zero, he decided to change his life. He labored by day and, two or three nights a week, placed his safety helmet in a locker at a University. Two degrees later, he became a teacher. He taught me determination and the value of literature and humour. My mother spent Sundays making ravioli by hand. She taught me patience, refinement and the value of one's passions. Of the three sons, I was the only one allowed into the kitchen. She wasn't fond of people around her there. For her it was a sacred place, spending hours rolling the dough, mixing the filling, making the circles of pasta with the open end of a cup. When we'd, at last, sit at the table, the first mouthful seemed like proof of the divine. Sundays were sublime.

It's good to dress well. Elegance expresses greater expectations of life. The current culture of slovenliness conveys a spiritual and intellectual surrender.