Quotes from Lynne Ramsay

I don't need to own one but I like to look at Diane Arbus's pictures and anything by Jackson Pollock.

There's something called toxic stress, which is repeated exposure to trauma. I was fascinated by how it affects the brain and the development of a person.

Morvern Callar's' a really weird film, in a sense, where I was trying to experiment with taking things in a different direction, and it kind of half works and it half doesn't. And I kind of felt with that film that perhaps I should have pushed it more into the realms of black comedy slightly.

You know when people ask sometimes what are you doing, and you say just something to them.

You have to keep going or this industry will roll over you and leave you for dead.

We Need To Talk About Kevin,' as an adaptation, was pretty major. It's a long book, and it's in letters, so it was a real editing experience to boil that down and make it cinematic. I learned a lot doing that film.

Kevin' was shot in 30 days.

I don't really watch TV; YouTube is far more entertaining. But I have tuned in to 'X Factor' - I like trash and nature programmes.

I love movies like 'The Postman Always Rings Twice' that are based on short novellas.

I think audiences are quite sophisticated.

I love Aphex Twin's 'Rhubarb.'

I have twins and luckily when I first looked at them I felt, I am really into you. I am going to find it easy to love you. But there are mothers out there who do not make that connection. It is a taboo subject but it is not exotic. It is a nightmare.

I'm interested in genre in a way, I suppose because you have a framework of something and you can just twist it to explore the psychology or try different subversive ideas on something that feels familiar.

Sometimes what you don't show creates more of a mystery.

99 percent of the time when you cast right, it's a dream. If you cast wrong, it's a nightmare.

A 30-day shoot is a nightmare.

I grew up on film noir.

It's funny - sometimes when you approach people they get freaked out but occasionally you'll find a gem who's unselfconscious in front of the camera.

Every film has its ups and downs. Each time it seems like pushing a boat over a mountain. I worked on 'The Lovely Bones' for five years before my involvement fell apart.

I love writing openings, and I think that can give me the key to the movie. So somehow, that can be the easiest part, to be honest.

Kevin' is a psychological horror film. It uses genre elements, so hopefully it's exciting to watch.

I was at the National Film School and was a cinematographer there. I got quite a lot of experience on documentary film-making and with directors who were interesting - maybe they weren't using scripts or were using non-actors.

To be honest, I was on the verge of thinking I didn't even want to be a film-maker, just because making 'Ratcatcher' had been so tough. Afterwards, I was just ill. Knackered.

I always say I thought I was making this exciting action movie but I actually always end up making character studies. Every single one.