A woman called me interesting once, and it kind of blew my mind. She said, 'You're one of the most interesting people I've ever met,' and I was like, 'Wow.'
I didn't only have a perceptual problem, I was also so nervous and so upset. The process just didn't work. I lost enthusiasm for school and I flunked second grade. The teachers said I was lazy.
I had to ride a horse once. In 'King Arthur.' I said I could ride, but I had to call for lessons on the day the deal was signed. I started out on this little chunky thing and slowly moved up. It was months of work.
When I felt rather overcome with my father's opposition, I said as firmly as I could, that I must have this or something else, that I could not live without some real work.
I remember a period where my publisher said to me, 'Look, your historical work is selling much better than your contemporary work, so please give us more historicals.'
What moves those of genius, what inspires their work is not new ideas, but their obsession with the idea that what has already been said is still not enough.
Paul Lucas had a particularly amusing accent, so I chuckled. That was terrible; I shouldn't have done that, but he took it too big. He got up and said he couldn't work with people who laughed at him!
What I learned most from my father wasn't anything he said; it was just the way he behaved. He loved his work so much that, whenever he came on set, he brought that with him, and other people rose to it.
I like to study the question or the problem or the opportunity in hand, work with the team to come with the right answer, make a decision, and act upon it. Some people have said that, actually, today they pretty much like their bankers dull.
And basically I always said when I was little that if I ever became successful or a celebrity, I would buy her this huge house and she would never have to work anymore. And I've done that. So I feel happy about doing that.
A New York casting director, who shall remain nameless, once said to me, 'Marcia, you have what I call the flaring-nostril look, and until you get something done about it, you will never, ever work.'
As I've always said, preproduction is so important. When you cast the actors, you've done much of the work. Now, you may need to guide them a little, take it up or down, have them go faster or slower, but the casting process is crucial.
When I got to be a CEO, I said: 'Right. I'm now going to tackle gender inequality head-on. I'm going to make a difference and lead by example and actively put in place policies and practices to support women.'
Ten years ago in Nairobi we said that the participation of women in the decision-making and appraisal processes of the United Nations was essential if the organization was to effectively serve women's interests.
I may have exaggerated a bit when I said that 80 per cent of the top 100 women are fat pigs. What I meant to say was 75 per cent of the top 100 women are fat pigs.
In short, it may be said that on paper the obligations to settle international disputes peacefully are now so comprehensive and far-reaching that it is almost impossible for a state to resort to war without violating one or more solemn treaty obligat...
Yes, what has happened is we have moved from responding to these terrorist attacks as acts of civil disobedience to getting to the point after September 11 that we said, no, this is not just civil disobedience, this is an act of war.
Then somebody suggested I should write about the war, and I said I didn't know anything about the war. I did not understand anything about it. I didn't see how I could write it.
I wanted to be a war reporter - scrabbling around, exposing things. I didn't want to go to university, I wanted to get a job, but Auntie Beryl said I should go to Oxford.
In World War II, the book you have in front of you, it was said and it is probably true, that there was not a single American who did not know the name of somebody serving in uniform.
Well, what I've said is that the war in Iraq will always be clouded by how it began, which was a wrong premise, that there were in fact no weapons of nuclear - weapons of mass destruction.
