Talulah Riley Quotes

I read one Jane Austen in college and didn't like it at all and told everyone how much I disliked it. I read 'Northanger Abbey' sophomore year in college and hated it. I didn't read good Austen until after college, maybe a couple years out.

Look at Jane Austen. Her characters derive in a reasonably straight line from fairy tales.

It's heretical, I know, but I've never really been able to get on with Agatha Christie. She is, of course, a giant of the genre, but I never feel that she cared a great deal about the characters. Consequently, neither do I.

One of the reasons we all still read Jane Austen is because her books are about universal things which still matter today - love, money, family. They haven't gone out of fashion, so it's not throwing the baby out with the bathwater to rework her in a contemporary style.

Sarah Phelps is such an incredibly detailed writer. She's famous for bringing literature to life, like Dickens and Agatha Christie.

We're so used to seeing Agatha Christie's work on screen that going back to the original is a real joy.

I remember, when I was a teenager, 'Pride And Prejudice' came out. We hadn't had a period drama for ages, and were all glued to it, and for the next three years, Jane Austen series were being made.

Jane Austen: Getting into her books is like getting in bed with a cadaver. Something vital is lacking; namely, life.

Mark Helprin and Lawrence Durrell, both of whom write fat and florid novels that appall me now but opened my eyes to the power of fiction when I was in my 20s.

I grew up reading 'The Jungle Books' and loving them.

I think that if you get too close to the character, if you do too much historical research, you may find yourself defending your view of a character against the author's view, and I think that's terribly dangerous.

I'm always interested to see what films are made of books. I kind of don't participate as a filmgoer in any kind of debate about what's better, the book or the movie. So I think it's interesting when people want to do it.

Growing up, I mostly read comic books and sci-fi. Then I discovered the book 'Jane Eyre' by Jane Austen. It introduced me to the world of romance, which I have since never left. Also, the world of the first-person narrative.

I would love to do anything involving a good strong character, whether it's in film, TV or theatre. My dream role's already been taken by Keira Knightley in 'Pride and Prejudice.' Growing up, I really wanted to be Lizzie Bennett.

It's absurd to think of 'Pride and Prejudice,' this classic, beloved book, beset with a zombie uprising. The goal is to make you suspend your disbelief enough to allow you to get lost in the story and believe what you're reading for a while.

I admire American literature, both contemporary and classic - 'Moby-Dick' is just about the best book in the world - and I admire British literature for its insistence on dealing with social class. It may have been an influence.

There's always an anxiety about playing literary characters because one of the great joys of reading books is that you can create your own vision of things.

I grew up reading 'Sense and Sensibility' and 'Pride and Prejudice' - girly kind of books.

I wanted to write as well as I possibly could to deal with life-and-death problems in contemporary society. And the form of Wilkie Collins and Graham Greene, of Hammett and Chandler, seemed to offer me all the rope I would ever need.

I have always loved 'Stig of the Dump.' I think reading that book made me officially realise that I was a reader.

The way I approach acting when there's a real life character, it's sort of like a Venn diagram. What I come up with is some amalgam of the two of us.

It's never easy to adapt a book, especially as the author, because it's as if you're chopping off appendages. It really feels painful to decide what has to go.

You can say to actors that you've got to be the character and really get into it, but you have to make it realistic by bringing an element of yourself into it.

I see 'Eligible' as a homage, and I see 'Pride and Prejudice' as a perfect book. You can dispute whether this project is a good idea, but you can't dispute my fondness for the novel.

I enjoy playing Mr. Darcy, but I'm not hungry to play Mark Darcy again.