SAM TAYLOR-JOHNSON

I almost never cry, and it's something I don't like about myself. I sometimes try and make myself cry. Sometimes, when I'm in pain, I say if I could just cry it would make it so much easier.

It's difficult for me to work with women, because I find that direct references are made back to me too fast. Working with men, it gives it a little distance.

When you have an author and an auteur, it's a difficult and challenging relationship.

I think it was Elisabeth Shue who said that if you start a movie with a woman seen through a man's eyes, that woman is objectified by him throughout.

I always say, and I truly believe this, that my work is three steps ahead of me. I have an idea for something and I tend to feel like it's leading me and I'll follow the process through, and it's not until after I've seen it that I truly understand why I'm doing this.

Sometimes photographing people is like pulling teeth, trying to get some sort of personality.

I love karaoke. I love maudlin country ballads. In another life, I'd be Loretta Lynn.

Money scares me, and it always has done. I've got a childish concept of money, and I like to keep it that way in the sense that I don't like to think about it.

Seriously, I wanted to be an artist because I saw that it meant endless possibilities. I came from a badly managed family background, so art was a way of reinventing myself.

I felt giving birth was the most creative act of all my creative acts - literally creation!

It was so amazing to fall crazily in love and get married and have kids.

When Scorsese or Coppola cast celebrities in their work, it goes without question.

I've always lived my life fearlessly, and what I want to do with my life, I do.

Relationships can go wrong very simply, very quickly, and when you have children you become more aware of relationships around you.

Having children is exciting. Life puts the past into perspective.

When I was eight, a hippie guy taught me how to meditate and gave me this scarf I was supposed to wear when I meditated. I still have it; it's probably one of the items that mean most to me.

I'm motivated every second by my work; it doesn't switch off.

You think, 'You hired me because I'm a creative artist with a vision. Don't try and knock it out of me.'

Finding your place as an artist is the hardest thing. You come out of college with what feels like a Mickey Mouse degree that qualifies you for nothing in the real world.

The way I was grew up gave me a slight fearlessness and a sense of independence. There are things about it that have definitely informed me. And then, as a parent, it's done the opposite. It's made me feel much more protective. There are boundaries in my kids' lives that I don't think I had.

I think you only see experiences as defining moments with distance.

I've turned into one of those people who go jogging in parks that I used to hate.

I think people are frightened of women making big decisions.

It would be nice to be a bit autonomous again, to enjoy something a bit quiet.

I love life. I think it's fantastic. Sometimes it deals hard things, and when it deals great things, you have to seize them.