Guy Ritchie quotes:

After Lock, Stock, all these really nasty small town characters came knocking at my door trying to tell me stories, and somehow I ended up with this guy whose brother was feeding people to pigs, and that's what he did to get rid of people.

The English countryside is the most staggeringly beautiful place. I can't spend as much time there as I like, but I like everything about it. I like fishing, I like clay- pigeon shooting.

We're quite volatile as individuals, but that doesn't work exponentially when we are together. Relationships are about eating humble pie.

It's not easy to strap yourself down to a desk and bash on a keyboard when you know you can direct lots of films, because directing films is fun and interactive and gregarious. Writing isn't.

The best thing to do is find one person in your life and try to love them unconditionally. If you've accomplished that, you've accomplished a lot.

It's about not letting the internal enemy, the real enemy, have his way because the more he does the stronger he becomes. The film's about the devastating results that can manifest from the internal enemy being unbridled and allowed to unleash chaos.

My principal job is to make interesting and entertaining films, and I'm not proud of which format or which particular technique I use. I just wanted the film to look good.

On Lock, Stock, we didn't know where the money for shooting the next day was coming from.

Jake Green isn't just Jake Green. Jake represents all of us. The colour green is the central column of the spectrum and the name Jake has all sorts of numerical values. All things come back to him within the film's world of cons and games.

All the other guys I think had a scream on Lock, Stock. They just had a laugh and a crack, and thought it would never come out; they were just having a good time. On this one, I felt that.

Previously, on Lock, Stock, I went to bed at two in the morning and woke up at five in the morning, and on this one I was known to nod off on the set occasionally.

I suppose directing on set is the most fun because it's a good crack and you feel you're on the battlefield whereas writing is a fairly solitary undertaking.

I'm not under too much of an illusion of how smart or un-smart I am because filmmaking ultimately is about teamwork.

I'm not politically motivated. I used to be - passionately. I used to be very Left wing. Then I went very Right wing, and now I rest somewhere in the middle.

We're not unique. We're quite volatile as individuals, but that doesn't work exponentially when we are together. Relationships are about eating humble pie.

I'm single again and I wouldn't have it any other way. I'm loving it at the moment. This is what I've been missing.

I am not involved in any 'issues' because it's too sensitive for me - or my wife - to get involved. Every time we express an opinion it becomes a whole thing in itself. And the whole purpose of living in the countryside was to get away from hundreds of people. My wife fell off a horse, and suddenly there are hundreds of people around.

I love fatherhood. I could bang on about kids forever.

We are not that flash, me or the missus. In fact, we are quite low-maintenance.

We always have a take that's 'one for fun', so once you've got what you need, you can do what you like. Something does occasionally pop out of that tree. I'm always open to ideas.

Other than the fact that I like a country house, I can't think of anything I'd want to spend my money on.

What I liked about American movies when I was a kid was that they're sort of larger than life and I think I'm still suffering from that reaction.

I got into film-making because I was interested in making entertaining movies, which I felt there was a lack of.

They're all based on factual characters. Well, a good amount of them. That's why I was attracted to this genre anyways, because these characters are so large and cartoonish, they're like caricatures, I just felt that there had to be a film made about them.

I got too fed up with films that didn't make you think. I liked the idea of one that you'd have to be dancing around with. I like my mind to be engaged when I watch a film.

I'd like to work with the missus, but there's nothing in the pipeline at the moment.

I think there's a natural system in your own head about how much violence the scene warrants. It's not an intellectual process, it's an instinctive process.

We can all be conned but at what point do we realize that we're being conned and to what point do we allow ourselves to be conned?

I like death. I'm a big fan of it.

The idea is that that there is no such thing as an external enemy.

I can understand that the whole world is interested in my wife Madonna. That's even why I married her.

Yeah, I'm certainly a lot more confident on this one than I was one the last one, which I think can be a good thing and a bad thing. But, at least I slept while making this film.

As I get more and more involved in the child's world with Rocco [his son] I'm getting interested in making a film for children.

Brad [Pitt], poor geezer, was blown up, thrown around, burned, slapped, frozen. But never a moan or a whine. Now that's what I call a real star.

I am relatively familiar with getting a good old rumping from the critics. In some cases, the critics just didn't like the film - fair cop. Others, I think, didn't understand it.

I don't know enough about Woody Allen to be a fan of him.

I don't like the idea of agents in a typical form. The idea of agents, to me, brings up the idea of a man in a very boring suit who's not very good looking and doesn't have much attention to style.

I like filming in the UK - I'll sleep in my own bed, which I'm really happy about.

I like the idea of taking what is essentially a boring, officious job and turning it into something that is a fantasy, to a degree. I suppose there is a juxtaposition involved in that because you do have to be a civil servant but you're doing a tremendously exciting job, or potentially an exciting job, or a glamourous job.

I like to think that we've got a plan, so let's stick to it. That said, once we've stuck to it, we're allowed as much improvisation as anyone cares to indulge themselves in.

I live on a bicycle...I live in central London, probably 90 percent of my travel is done on a bicycle. I love bicycles.

I still love her. But she's retarded, too.

I think everything you do, characters I always find, have their own voices and once you establish who that character is you find a different voice. I think it's just a question of establishing that character and the voice speaks through that character.

I think it's that much harder to make a good comedy than it is straight and apparently serious.

If somebody has a better idea than me, I'll take it if it surpasses what we have on the page because at the end of the day, it's me that takes the credit anyway!

If you change the rules on what controls you... you will change the rules on what you can control.

If you find a TV series that you like, you like the tone of the TV series or the movie.

In fact, 95% of the people in my films have been nothing less than a pleasure to work with.

Its about not letting the internal enemy, the real enemy, have his way because the more he does the stronger he becomes. The films about the devastating results that can manifest from the internal enemy being unbridled and allowed to unleash chaos.

It's OK to have beliefs, just don't believe in them.

It's still too early to say how my wife will influence my life. But I do already know that it's sometimes hard work living with her.

My approach to violence is that if it's pertinent, if that's the kind of movie you're making, then it has a purposeI think there's a natural system in your own head about how much violence the scene warrants. It's not an intellectual process, it's an instinctive process. I like to think it's not violence for the sake of violence and in this particular film, it's actually violence for the annihilation of violence.

One of the interesting and exciting things about my job is watching technological ground being pioneered.

Sugar is responsible for a lot of deaths. Arguably more than crack cocaine.

The most nervous I've ever been was on a 250 pound music video which is the first thing I ever did. And I stepped on there with a directing partner, so I could blame him when everything went tits up. But since then my nerves have incrementally decreased so I'm not plagued by the same sense of nerves as I used to be.

You get a different kick out of all aspects of filmmaking.