Top 137 Quotes & Sayings by Sam Taylor-Johnson

I always say, and I truly believe this, that my work is three steps ahead of me. I have an idea for something and I tend to feel like it's leading me and I'll follow the process through, and it's not until after I've seen it that I truly understand why I'm doing this.

I often joke that I straddle psychosis and neurosis, and that being an artist keeps me in the middle, so I can work between the two.

When I had cancer - of the colon first, followed by breast cancer and a mastectomy - my motto used to be 'Drips by day, Prada by night.' I felt that I had to grasp it in the same way as you'd take on any challenge.

I feel the art world in New York has a stronger following than Britain. If you go to a New York art district on a Saturday morning, it will be so busy with families and openings - art is much more ingrained in the culture.

I took on cancer like I take on everything - like a mission and a job to accomplish.

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

My childhood had its challenges, like everyone's. It imbued me with certain things and took away others. It made me very determined.

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

I love karaoke. I love maudlin country ballads. In another life, I'd be Loretta Lynn.

Sorry, there's nothing like a screaming baby to make a mother twitch.

I think people are frightened of women making big decisions.

I hate rats. I had a pet rat to try and overcome it. I even gave him mouth-to mouth resuscitation when he had a heart attack. But I couldn't conquer it.

I'm interested in taking raw human emotions and then isolating them without any narrative structure. In order to achieve this, I try to break out of the narrative conventions that you'd see in a typical feature film.

Sometimes, I get afraid it has defined me, that sense of grief, loss and illness. But actually, it is about allowing myself to take hold and say: 'This is part of who I am, but not only who I am.'

I have a massive phobia for schedules and calendars. I need people to tell me where I need to be. I can't bear to see it in black and white. I think it's a fear of being pinned down.

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

I went to Goldsmith College of Art in London in the '80s and there I made sculptures, but the objects had nothing to do with how I was thinking. I was making beautifully sanded wooden boxes!

I struggle if I have chaos around me, but at the same time, if I don't have it, I'm uncomfortable. It's a strange thing: If I don't have chaos, I create it.

At school, I always felt the art room was the place where you could sit and talk. It was a place of solace. I wasn't the best artist at school by a long shot; it was more the understanding and the support that came from that room.

My work is made on lines similar to those of a film production. A lot of my work is kind of bureaucratic, endlessly phoning up people, trying to find the cameraman and the lighting man, because I am a total technology-phobe, quite helpless with equipment.

I wanted to become an artist because it meant endless possibilities. Art was a way of reinventing myself.

Britain can sometimes feel like a very small village, and you're this, I dunno, scarlet woman they're all gossiping about.

I am completely, utterly obsessed with clothes. To an embarrassing extent.

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

My stepfather was quite into opera, but he'd play it when he was in a bad mood, so you'd hear this boom through the floor, Wagner, and you'd feel nervous.

People in love don't see gender, colour or religion. Or age. It's about the other person, the one that you love and who loves you. You don't think of them in terms of a label. You just go with your heart.

I never thought of having cancer as something that was unfair. I just braced myself and tried to get through it.

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 can be very self-destructive, but quietly.

I really have learned to live in the moment. I don't question things too much or try to project into the future. That's how life should be.

In my life, I've never really listened to when people start forming opinions on how you should be doing things.

My mum has lived in Australia for 22 years now, and we have a rocky relationship. But at the same time it's one I want to maintain. I need her to be my mum. The relationship took a lot of rebuilding.

After I left college, I went to work at the Royal Opera House in London, which became a real catalyst for me because it made me realize that I was interested in cinema and in the way life is thrust at you. So I started making films.

Relationships can go wrong very simply, very quickly, and when you have children you become more aware of relationships around you.

Money scares me, and it always has done. I've got a childish concept of money, and I like to keep it that way in the sense that I don't like to think about it.

I'm the lightest sleeper. I can hear a pin drop. It's been worse since I was ill. I think your inner ear is always half open, listening out for the faintest danger sign.

I've been through plenty in my life where I've really had to focus on the day ahead... because, as I know, the future is, you know, whatever the future is... Once you've stared mortality that hard in the face, you really seize the day.

I've always lived my life fearlessly, and what I want to do with my life, I do.

One of the few times I saw my mother cry was when Lennon died, and the other time was when Elvis died.

I think you only see experiences as defining moments with distance.

Anonymity would be a fantastic umbrella. I don't like intrusion.

I love life. I think it's fantastic. Sometimes it deals hard things, and when it deals great things, you have to seize them.

Seriously, I wanted to be an artist because I saw that it meant endless possibilities. I came from a badly managed family background, so art was a way of reinventing myself.

Having children is exciting. Life puts the past into perspective.

Never trust a hippie. That's definitely my motto.

I've turned into one of those people who go jogging in parks that I used to hate.

I find that I put my body in my work when I am at a particularly difficult or joyous point because I want to feel that moment.

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.

I almost never cry, and it's something I don't like about myself. I sometimes try and make myself cry. Sometimes, when I'm in pain, I say if I could just cry it would make it so much easier.

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.

I suppose I didn't cry in all the cancer crap stuff because I felt I couldn't lose the battle, and part of the battle was holding myself together.

I understand what it is to go through emotional trauma and retreat and go into the world of your imagination. I understand how art and music can be a place of safety in a world of reinvention.

I felt giving birth was the most creative act of all my creative acts - literally creation!

When you're no longer ill, and everyone's gotten over the fact that you've had cancer, that core of steel doesn't go away, and then I had to find other channels for it.

I feel lucky to be getting older. The fact that I made it to 30 and then 40 was big enough. So I can't get too down on getting older; otherwise, it kind of undoes everything I've fought for.

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

People tell you you're having chemotherapy, but there are different types of chemotherapy, and you don't know which one you're going to get and how it's going to affect you. The people in the hospitals don't always have time to help you understand it.

I'm good at keeping secrets.

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

I seize all opportunities with two hands. Everything that's happened to me has taught me to live in the moment as much as possible.