About Richard Eyre: Sir Richard Charles Hastings Eyre is an English film, theatre, television and opera director.
I've always believed that you write to discover what you think. On most subjects, if I'm asked what do I think about them, I'd say I don't know, I'll have to write them down.
You can't be minimalist as a director until you have acquired the experience and confidence to say no.
The desire to share is not a vague, windy sentiment, not when you see the massive rise in live concerts in response to the phenomenon of downloading music... People want to get rid of the headphones and be part of a shared experience.
If the arts are held up solely as a means of social insight, fantasy is denied the chance to be commonplace and reality the chance to be exotic.
I envy the happiness of others... I envy the sense of belonging... I seem always to be remaking myself.
The arts are weapons of understanding and weapons of happiness.
I believe there is a relationship between having an interest in the arts and the behaviour of society as a whole. Some politicians find it difficult that the arts is a weapon of happiness... Politics is often about deprivation rather than the opening...
What we hold in our heads - our memory, our feelings, our thoughts, our sense of our own history - is the sum of our humanity.
Change begins with understanding and understanding begins by identifying oneself with another person: in a word, empathy. The arts enable us to put ourselves in the minds, eyes, ears and hearts of other human beings.
I sort of feel that climate change will be solved by science. I just feel instinctively that we will find a way of saving ourselves. But I am less confident that we won't destroy ourselves in other ways.
Every action has a consequence, so always try to be good.
All good actors are very bright. You can't be stupid and a good actor. You may be inarticulate, you may not be highly educated, but all good actors are quick-witted, some of them dazzlingly so. All you do is guide them.
The principle of acting in good faith is at the heart of decent work.
A place makes a deep impression on you when you're young. It lives with you. It's like your childhood. It fertilises the imagination.
I've always argued, unsuccessfully, that there's no point in giving money to the arts unless you educate people in them.
Naming a baby is an act of poetry, for many people the only creative moment of their lives.
There is in our society a gulf opening up, a kind of cultural apartheid, between those who are brought up to feel our national culture is theirs, to take ownership of it, and enjoy the privileges of that, and those who are completely disfranchised, t...
Everything people say about grandparenthood is true - it is pleasure without responsibility. It is unquestioned love.
I'm wary of artistic directors who say, 'Here is my vision', because it's empirical. Basically it's about who you work with and what plays you put on; the vision comes out of that.
