Sam Taylor-Johnson quotes:

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  • I've made lots of big decisions in my life that have shocked people.

  • In 'Fifty Shades,' seemingly, Christian has all the power and control - but actually, Anastasia does.

  • Mum and Dad split up when I was nine. We upped and moved from London to Sussex, and suddenly I went from an urban life to nothing in the countryside - with a new father and new life.

  • Directing 'Fifty Shades of Grey' has been an intense and incredible journey for which I am hugely grateful. I have Universal to thank for that.

  • I keep seeing in the papers that I am good friends with Samantha Cameron. I've never met her in my life.

  • If you love someone, you love someone. It doesn't matter; age, colour, c'mon!

  • My biggest fears aren't with my work. My biggest fears are walking through hospital doors. Once you can face that, being fearless about your work is easy.

  • I believe that life is short, and there is too much time wasted bearing grudges, and I like to move on.

  • My parents were Beatle fans, but my mom was especially a Lennon fan, so I was exposed to him more. I remember her playing 'Double Fantasy' quite often.

  • Despite great advances in women's rights, statistics show that when it comes to the balance of power between the sexes, equality is far from being a global reality.

  • I feel like I became an artist by default. I went to art college, but my interest was always more towards film than painting or sculpture.

  • I remember as a kid not ever wanting to have friends around to my house because it was, for want of a better description, disheveled.

  • When I had cancer, people were surprised at how cheerful and upbeat I was, but I couldn't let myself go to depression - to go there, that defeat would allow everything in. If you look too far into the abyss, you might never come out again. You can stand on the abyss and peep but not give in to sadness.

  • I'd like to make something about someone who hasn't existed so that I don't have to tread so carefully and can feel a little bit more creative freedom.

  • I am not famous at all.

  • I think the whole of people's psychology and where they are in life interests me, and the decisions you make that take you on particular journeys to different places.

  • In the old days, 'controversial' in a relationship meant same-sex or mixed races.

  • I can be a bit extreme. I'll spend too much time running round the park, doing yoga and drinking green tea. I can get a bit obsessive. I have to rein it in sometimes.

  • My favorite part of the whole filmmaking process is working with a fantastic cinematographer, a fantastic actor or actors, and then just creating emotions and stories. I get so excited by that. That's the part I'm utterly addicted to.

  • I love showing my scar on my tummy - it is shaped like a question mark.

  • I'm very blessed with the perfect husband.

  • I don't understand why there aren't more powerful female directors. I don't have the answers, but I hope that things may start to shift and that studios will employ more women to handle strong and interesting material.

  • I'm interested in the acting and staging of specific emotions, and so I work with actors. It's a small proportion of what I do, but it's always what people seem to focus on.

  • I think it was Elisabeth Shue who said that if you start a movie with a woman seen through a man's eyes, that woman is objectified by him throughout.

  • I think, for me, Julian Schnabel set a great precedent in being able to cross over so successfully. I feel like his artwork is kind of big, grand, and bombastic, yet the films that he makes are very beautifully sensitive, and I just feel that his filmmaking sensibility is very different from his artwork.

  • The line between private and public lives is a fertile one for me. I've lived quite a public life, and it's the reason I have used well-known people in my work. I'm interested in what's going on beneath the facades they present to the world, taking them to a place which is uncomfortable.

  • I feel like I've lost 10 years of my life to cancer.

  • Sometimes photographing people is like pulling teeth, trying to get some sort of personality.

  • I try to leave things as open ended as possible, not too overladen with meaning.

  • It's difficult for me to work with women, because I find that direct references are made back to me too fast. Working with men, it gives it a little distance.

  • I don't think you can judge something without seeing it.

  • I eat all the time, and I run all the time.

  • It was so amazing to fall crazily in love and get married and have kids.

  • When you have an author and an auteur, it's a difficult and challenging relationship.

  • Shooting at Coco Chanel's apartment was an unexpectedly absorbing experience. The essence of Chanel is firmly rooted there in all of her possessions, and I truly believe that her spirit and soul still inhabit the second floor.

  • I'm annoying to be around because I keep twitching.

  • My mother reads tarot cards, actually, but I won't let her read mine.

  • To be feminist doesn't mean you can't be submissive.

  • When I was eight, a hippie guy taught me how to meditate and gave me this scarf I was supposed to wear when I meditated. I still have it; it's probably one of the items that mean most to me.

  • I only photograph myself at poignant moments in my life as a check of where I am and how large my thighs are.

  • The thing that is so great about Ang Lee is the diversity in his filmmaking, from 'Brokeback...' to 'The Hulk.'

  • I think I was lucky I got into art college. That's what saved me.

  • Even today I work with Niall O'Brien, who is far more technically astute than I am, but I still have the clearest idea of every detail I want in my photograph.

  • It would be nice to be a bit autonomous again, to enjoy something a bit quiet.

  • A friend got me a job on the door of the Camden Palace nightclub, which quickly progressed to running the place.

  • The pictures I make come from every blink of my lashes.

  • When Scorsese or Coppola cast celebrities in their work, it goes without question.

  • You think, 'You hired me because I'm a creative artist with a vision. Don't try and knock it out of me.'

  • The way I was grew up gave me a slight fearlessness and a sense of independence. There are things about it that have definitely informed me. And then, as a parent, it's done the opposite. It's made me feel much more protective. There are boundaries in my kids' lives that I don't think I had.

  • I'm fascinated by male vulnerability.

  • I want to protect my vision, and that's the hardest thing.

  • I don't eat any dairy products at all, usually - it's a self-imposed ban. I've done it for a year now, since I was ill, but it's so hard.

  • I think I just love films where men have complete breakdowns.

  • Sometimes when you're looking at your own work, you can't really see, and it's only when you step back a little bit later that you think, 'Oh, that's completely in line with everything else I've done.'

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