My father died. His ornithological knowledge, never collected or collated in anything like a comprehensible book - it was five suitcases and two trunks of scattered notes - died with him. A loss of knowledge. I made a film in small part reparation.

As for critics, one mediocre writer is more valuable than ten good critics. They are like haughty, barren spinsters lodged in a maternity ward.

I have often thought it was very arrogant to suppose you could make a film for anybody but yourself.

The Sistine Chapel is an extraordinary work of education - it lays out all the early books of the Bible.

I always think that art is one of the most wonderful exciting curious ways to learn. I have no worries or apologies about art being used as a teaching medium.

I think that films or indeed any art work should be made in a way that they are infinitely viewable; so that you could go back to it time and time again, not necessarily immediately but over a space of time, and see new things in it, or new ways of looking at it.