Sam Taylor-Johnson Quotes

Acting, believe it or not, can get very self-involved! I feel fortunate to have been able to work on things with people who have a very specific point of view and perspective, and who feel like they're doing something very active.

I love getting people's opinion of what I'm doing.

Sometimes, you have to step back in order to have a clear view, and I recognize I was going down the wrong path with Trump.

I'm not nearly as important as I used to think I was. It's a wonderful discovery.

When you re-read a classic you do not see in the book more than you did before. You see more in you than there was before.

At the age of 60, I am less experimental and more mature. I want most of all to convey my understanding of life.

Sometimes it takes years to really grasp what has happened to your life.

It could be seen as narcissistic to have your own museum, but for me, it's such a long time ago - I have perspective. That young man in the funny clothes - he's almost a stranger, so I can tell his story.

I really like watching myself a lot because it gives me an opportunity to see it from outside the flesh, and when I view it like that, I can be a lot more cynical and see the things that need to be attacked.

After spending 460 days as a hostage, I did emerge a fundamentally changed person. But I think, like everyone does as they grow older and probably wiser, I can look back at my earlier life - my history, my mistakes, the joy I felt as a young woman traveling the world - with some objectivity and even some humor.

Those who write about life, reflect about life. you see in others who you are.

I'm not trying to sound like I turned into some kind of wise man, but it's nice to realize that your little pocket of the world isn't the whole world.

Wisdom may best arise from a humbling reality.

Curiosity is the best motive for writing: curiosity about the world at large, or about oneself.

Begin challenging your assumptions. Your assumptions are the windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in awhile or the light won't come in.

Photography is a way of putting distance between myself and the work which sometimes helps me to see more clearly what it is that I have made.

When I see myself at 14 years old I can put my hands on my head and think: 'How could I have done that?' but at that time it had sense for me. You do the same when you're 20. And now, when you look at people who are 20 years old you ask yourself: 'Was I like that? Was I really like that?'

You usually can't tell what's inspiring until you look back on it.

In addition to giving comfort and joy, art also has the miraculous ability to let us live in other men's skins, to test our perceptions and beliefs against theirs, and perhaps to be changed as a result. It does this by portraying the world creatively, heightening our perception and enriching our understanding of things as they are.

O, would some Power give us, To see ourselves as others see us!

I don't feel like a very nostalgic person. I think about the past much more clinically. When I look back and wonder, 'Why was I doing that? Was it a waste of time?' I don't beat myself up. Instead, I say, 'I'm so glad I did that, because now I really know what matters to me.'

When you've had a chance to live some experiences then you can really write, and not having lived that much when I was young I didn't have much to write about. Now having seen life, the songs seem to come easier.

I think sometimes you need distance to reflect.

Put your choices in perspective.

There's something to be said about being able to be retrospective about a certain age as opposed to just in it.