Quotes from Peter Morgan

Most of the things I write, I write on spec. And because I write them on spec, there's less interference. Because there's less interference, they tend to be better.

I have a great deal of compassion for those in public life and what we have done to them.

The films of which I'm most proud I've written are the ones that pivot on forgiveness.

There is something fantastically post-modern about David Frost.

Barack Obama winning the election had an instant impact on everything - race relations, national self-esteem, tolerance. It also had an instant affect on 'Frost/Nixon.' At a stroke, instead of being a piece that reminded people of the agony they were in, it became an uplifting message about the agony they had escaped.

I insist to this day that if you read the screenplay to 'The Queen,' it leaves you in no doubt that we considered her an isolated, out-of-touch, cold, emotionally inaccessible, overprivileged, deluded woman, heading an institution that should immediately be dismantled in any free and fair society.

The film 'The Queen' came about with a producer saying to me that he wanted me to write about the circumstances behind Diana's death. I think he was hoping that I would come up with some journalistic scoop that would identify an MI5 covert plot.

I have always cited the decision by director Stephen Frears to shoot 'Mrs. Henderson Presents' before my script of 'The Queen' as the reason for my taking the plunge as a playwright.

I quite like the idea - just as an abstract idea - of 12 people's collective life experience and wisdom being this formidable thing. People say juries can be led - I think 12 people from different backgrounds, different races, different genders, different ages, it's hard to hoodwink.

Sometimes you are lucky enough to get offered things, and there is no rhyme or reason. I am very lucky because I come from England, and you have a whole range of things offered to you, from television plays and shows and theatre, so much more to explore, so it's never really money.

I don't think of the crown as this glamorous thing. It's this murderous, bejeweled thing, the crown.

I don't want to become too self-conscious - it's why I never read reviews, even the good ones.

I'm not an artist, and I want to take risks, and when the possibility of failure occurs, it's because the idea is all exciting or interesting as a high wire act, and sometimes you've got to fall off, just by virtue of the fact that you're constantly trying to evolve and do new things.

As we go through life our relationship with our own mortality and our inevitable demise increases.

People test movies within an inch of their life, so that the entire audience experience is a uniform one.

I make a point of not reading reviews because of the old adage, if you read the good ones then you have to read the bad ones, and if you read the bad ones, you have to, you know... And also because it's a very, very bewildering and exposing thing.

The real beauty in my professional experience has been friendships and collaborations with filmmakers.

I don't understand and don't enjoy sci-fi, and it's just that if people aren't real, and they don't live in a real and recognizable society, I don't understand what to do.

I've done a lot of work in Hollywood and theatre, but to be honest, the biggest pleasure I've ever got is from the TV single plays I've written. It's a format where you don't mind saying, 'I want to tackle some important themes head on.'

It's madness to hand in a script to a director, leave them alone, and for the director not to want the writer there with rehearsals and the shoot.

Most historians are engaged in fiction.

When I started writing the screenplay for 'The Queen,' about the aftermath of the death of Princess Diana, both Stephen Frears, the director, and Andy Harries, the producer, begged me not to put Tony Blair in it.

Generally, I read nonfiction. Theres very little fiction that I enjoy enough to spend my time reading. I am generally a nonfiction guy.

I read nonfiction. There's very little fiction that I enjoy enough to spend my time reading. I am generally a nonfiction guy.