Top 103 Quotes & Sayings by Abi Morgan

I need to be in charge, and that comes from when I was growing up and money was always an issue. I didn't want to feel the fear of poverty again, and I suppose, in that way, I qualify as Thatcher Youth.

Feminism isn't just for women. It's for men.

Of course I am aware that there is a level of sexism in any large institution, but I find, in television and film, most of the producers are women.

If you're dealing with a powerful leader, you're inevitably going to have a dialogue with her political past. It was always my intention to interrogate Thatcher's political life.

Really, feminism is just about equality, and that's all. It's just saying equal rights.

Yes, I've heard of the 'Mad Men' comparisons, but I like to think 'The Hour' has its own distinctive voice. Although it is set in 1956, I have tried to give it a contemporary edge, and its themes of love, passion, romance, fury, professional jealousy, and personal failure are universal, I think.

I try to stay focused on the work and recognize that I've been very lucky. Maybe it's 'cause I grew up with actors, but I've seen that recognition comes and goes, so all there really is is your family and friends. You have to maintain those constants in your life. Maintain what's beyond your work.

My mother came to see me in a play when I was a student, and afterwards, I asked her what she thought. She said, 'Honest opinion? No.'

The joy for me as a writer is that, despite the fact I spend most of my life on my own in a room eating too much chocolate and drinking too much tea, eventually they let me out into the world.

'The Iron Lady' is not a biopic. Phyllida Lloyd and Meryl Streep coined it 'King Lear for girls.'

I think film and television - particularly film - you are very isolated as a writer. If you're lucky, you have a good relationship with the director. Then you do make that development and come on set and be part of something. But ultimately, your work is kind of done by the time you come on set.

I think casting is everything. You get a great cast and - certainly, as happens in 'The Hour' - so many of those performances on the page were transformed by those actors who took those parts and made it into something completely different.

I get the 'Guardian' delivered every day and read it very quickly. I like it for both the TV and theatre reviews and because it's very accessible. At the weekend, I get the 'Observer' because I love the food supplement, Observer Food Monthly, and the style section. And I can't resist the News of the World.

I love the intimacy of TV. I love the fact that you don't necessarily have the pressure of an audience or anyone around watching it - just you and it.

I never know if I'm the builder or architect. The role shifts all the time. But what I have come to conclude is that the script is the muse.

I think I'm always running away from somewhere, and to me, theatre's always felt like a good place to run away to.

I don't really read that many magazines; I'm more of a browser. I get 'Vanity Fair' quite often if I'm on a train.

Usually when I write a movie, I'm lucky if I get one good actress.

As a writer, you're not even at the party when you work in film. At best, you're the one laying out the canapes.

Even if you've been a coward all your life, death is a heroic act.

I was never cool as a kid.

I used to believe in God as a child. God, for me, was linked with hope.

If you want to fit in, you try to mirror whatever anyone wants from you.

I was a pretty heartbroken 13-year-old. That was the year my grandmother died and my parents split up.

I write an actual script rather quickly - a draft will take me two weeks - but I write a lot of drafts. My big thing is I don't re-read. When I write, I never re-read back. I'll send it, because if I re-read back, it will cripple me.

I definitely people-watch. I often see photos of myself with my children: I'm always in the background with my mouth wide open, looking somewhere else.

I think that, as a writer, while it's your job to construct stories, you have to navigate your way through them with your heart.

I think social media has reinvigorated people's enthusiasm to be active and to engage.

I didn't take into account the critical tsunami that comes with having work going out. I've gone from being a complete narcissist, someone who googles my own name, to someone who has to work separately from that to avoid creative paralysis.

It's quite good when you fall flat on your bum on a creative level. Critics can hate what I do, or I've got something completely wrong, and it's good because that ego thing gets zapped for a while.

One of the things I think I can do in my lifetime is stop to remind myself that - and keep affirming that - women can sell movies.

I'm a writer of fiction. I try to write about my time, but it's dangerous if I'm seen as an investigative writer. I manipulate and change and control.

I'm the world's worst at reading reviews and then pretending I've read the book.

I spent most of the Seventies living in Newcastle-upon-Tyne and most of the Eighties living in Stoke-on-Trent.

I hope my pieces have an authenticity to them, but my job is to filter the world and tell a story, not to define and recreate exactly what's going on.

I always deeply admire people who can stay still in a room and wait for people to come to them.

I think theater is very much my natural home. But the truth is that the older I've got, and the more I've written film and television, I find it incredibly hard to write theater.

What's great about the way 'Shame''s been received is that I kept on thinking there's no way this film will be received well since I've had such a good time.

Of all the mediums, theatre is the one where you really need to have something to say - because it's just you, the words, and the space.

I'm so straight and boring, really. I have two kids and a very nice partner.

You can't control how an audience responds to something. It's up to them.

I am always running away from something.

Eddie Marsan is just my favourite actor of all time. I love everything he's been in, so it's a dream come true to work with him.

Good writing is often about trying to investigate something you feel is missing and trying to put it back.

I always say writing a play is like toothache: I find it incredibly painful, and it's only once the play's out that the pain is gone.

I am the most tense, annoying person in the world.

Writing a film is like giving birth to a baby and then giving it up for adoption.

I used to listen to 'Woman's Hour' every morning, but I've discovered that I can't have words on when I'm working.

'Splendour' broke through to new territory for me. It exposed my commitment to writing for women: my desire to recognise that they can be as aggressive, violent, mercurial, and complex as men.

Most good work is a combination of parts you love and parts you could do better. My constant mantra is, 'Next time, next time, next time.'

I talk to myself all the time - it's something my children have observed in the car.

I can go to the BBC and say, 'OK, my next drama is for women, and it is diverse women.' I take that to America, however, and I have another set of conversations.

I know what it's like to be brought up by actors and writers.

I can understand a family that's imploding. I have experience of that in my own life.

I literally grew up in drama. I used to watch drama - the catharsis of the play - then see drama at home.

The older I get, the more I have to think long and hard about what I need to say and why.

I never get writer's block, but I do have days where I crawl under the duvet.

London does two things for me: it makes me feel connected, and it also makes me feel very isolated and quite lonely at times, and that's someone with two children in their family.

I understand this fear of the word 'feminism,' and I understand the fear of saying it because it becomes as divisive as 'sexism' has become. But I know a lot of male feminists.

Life experiences inherently change you as a writer. My sense of fury calmed down when I had children and found a loving partner.