Sam Taylor-Johnson Quotes

Life is a very orderly thing, but in fiction there is a huge liberation and freedom. I can do what I like. There's nothing that says I can't write a page of full stops. There is no 'should' involved, although you wouldn't know that from literary reviews and critics.

When no one knows you, and you're just trying to break into stuff, it's so good because you can write whatever you want and just say it; it's just between you and the audience. There's no process or worrying about anyone else interfering with what you're doing.

I've never let producers tell me what to do. Even when I was making television, I always did what I wanted to do, and if I couldn't, I didn't do it. It was a freedom that, these days, young directors starting out don't have.

Artists can do whatever they want!

The great liberation of imaginative writing is that you're not held back by the facts.

Nobody can assume that, to a writer, everything is off-limits.

One of the advantages of not going to art school is that you're not taught what you can't do.

One of the great things about working for Netflix is that they haven't placed any restrictions on content or artistically.

We are so grateful we are given the chance and the freedom to do what we want, what we want to create, what's on our mind, and that's honestly what we asked for in the beginning of our career.

But I'm never gonna get to a point in my life where what it costs to shoot a movie is going to determine what it is. The limits of my imagination is the only thing that's gonna stop me.

I really have to feel a sense of freedom in my storytelling.

The freedom of every artist is essential.

The nice thing about the world that I've been able to inhabit for the last couple of years is that I'm given a lot of freedom. Not all artists really get that.

There were no previews; we made the film we wanted to make.

I've been very lucky in the freedom that I've been given. Every artist needs two types of freedom: You need the freedom to - the freedom to come up with an idea or treatment - and then you need the other half of the freedom, and that's freedom from - somebody saying, 'This is great. This is how I want you to do it.'

I don't have a great respect for reality or getting the 'facts' as a means of putting together a story.

I think that was the whole idea behind doing the solo record was to be able to do musically whatever I wanted to do.

When you give an artist a canvas, you shouldn't tell him exactly how much paint to put on it, or exactly how sharp the images should be. You should let the artist get going.

We are going to finish this picture just the way I want it... because you cannot compromise an artist's vision.

To direct a sequel to somebody else's work is not interesting to me.

Someone who is an artist can say, 'I can create and can make what I create disappear.'

The secret sauce of the business that I can offer is my creativity, and in order to keep my creativity alive and fresh, I have to pretend that no one is watching the show, that there are no audiences, there are no ratings; I'm just telling a story.

Sadly I don't work well under restrictions. I need to forget the world and its rules and laws in order to enter the dreamlike flow of the fictional world. So I may be in some bad trouble.

I don't think most of our films should be realistic, but you want that as an artistic possibility. Then, the artist can take the realism of the world and push it in ways that we can connect with.

I am comfortable doing independent music; it gives me more freedom as an artiste.