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Peter Morgan Quotes

Powerful Peter Morgan for Daily Growth

For a younger generation to imagine a time where there was no security at airports - going around the world in the bar of a jumbo jet, 'Tell the plane to wait, I'm running late!' - there is something very Austin Powers about David Frost, a man who, in all seriousness, would approach women in a safari suit, with sideburns.

- Peter Morgan

Wait, Very, Plane, Austin

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.

- Peter Morgan

Woman, Queen, Considered, Inaccessible

Every dramatist will tell you that they know deep down what happened in the course of making that film and to what degree they took steps that were convenient and to what degree they took steps in telling their story that were dishonest. You know in your heart of hearts.

- Peter Morgan

Deep, Tell, Telling, Convenient

There's nothing wrong with anybody from any other country having a perspective on the British royal family. It would be interesting. But I just doubt that they would get the dialogue right.

- Peter Morgan

Country, Other, Having, Royal Family

I wrote 'Hereafter' quickly and without mapping it out too much or being too schematic. As an exercise, I think that was incredibly important.

- Peter Morgan

Think, I Think, Mapping, Hereafter

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

- Peter Morgan

Deal, Public, Them, Public Life

It is a fairly serious thing that you're doing if you're writing about people who are still alive and who still have a role in public life. Sometimes you don't want to be reminded too much of the responsibility.

- Peter Morgan

Doing, Alive, Role, Public Life

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.

- Peter Morgan

Alone, Madness, Director, Rehearsals

If you start to analyze what you do, it can paralyze you.

- Peter Morgan

Start, You, Paralyze, Analyze

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

- Peter Morgan

Fiction, Very, Read, Nonfiction

Movies feel like work, and reading fiction feels like work, whereas reading nonfiction feels like pleasure.

- Peter Morgan

Movies, Like, Feels, Nonfiction

As historians write more and more histories, it's a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy that other historians read their histories and then make synthesis, and certain things just get forgotten and left out and neglected.

- Peter Morgan

Other, Out, Get, Prophecy

I'm not a vindictive person. But I do want to shine a light on human frailty and heroism in equal measure.

- Peter Morgan

Measure, Vindictive, Equal, Frailty

If you have distance from the events, then your story can work as an analogy or parable rather than its literal narrative.

- Peter Morgan

Work, Distance, Rather, Analogy

There are so many projects that I've written and had to abort because either I felt too distressed by what I was doing to the people who I was writing about, or they couldn't cope with it because their view of themselves was so far removed from reality.

- Peter Morgan

Doing, Projects, About, Distressed

People bang on all the time about whether what I've done is the truth or not. Well, to me, history is just a series of elaborate fictions.

- Peter Morgan

History, About, Elaborate, Fictions

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.

- Peter Morgan

Self-Esteem, Affect, Became, Tolerance

Sometimes if biography is too head-on, it can feel too obvious.

- Peter Morgan

Sometimes, Feel, Too, Head-On

If you think about what you do, if you become self-conscious about it, you've got to be very careful. Because I really like to write without self-awareness of what I'm doing.

- Peter Morgan

Think, Very, Self-Conscious, Self-Awareness

I'm not being presumptuous, I hope, when I say that 'The Crown' is little bit like 'The Godfather.' It is essentially about a family in power and survival.

- Peter Morgan

Survival, Like, About, Godfather

You can be far more challenging, articulate and intelligent writing for television than you can writing for the cinema.

- Peter Morgan

Television, More, Far, Articulate

The first and primary requirement for me in a director that I'd want to work with is: do they love writing, and do they love the collaboration process with writers?

- Peter Morgan

Love, Process, Director, Primary

There are people who are bound journalistically to a code of ethics that means they can't quote something that isn't sourced, whereas what I do is entirely unsourced. I effectively fictionalise history and yet somehow aim at a greater truth.

- Peter Morgan

Aim, Code, Means, Whereas

Authorised royal biographers are so straitjacketed, deferential, fawning, and unadventurous that they can only be after a knighthood. Or they're completely scurrilous and insolent, like Andrew Morton or Paul Burrell.

- Peter Morgan

Like, Andrew, Insolent, Knighthood

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.

- Peter Morgan

Less, I Write, Them, Interference

There is something fantastically post-modern about David Frost.

- Peter Morgan

Something, About, David, Frost

I can't imagine anyone thinking, 'Oh good, it's awards season!'

- Peter Morgan

Awards, Imagine, Anyone, Season

By nature of the job, most actors are striking, remarkable, and alpha.

- Peter Morgan

Remarkable, Most, Striking, Alpha

My experience is, I do a table reading, and it's literally like it's written in colossal neon lights what's wrong with the screenplay.

- Peter Morgan

Reading, Like, Literally, Table

As a child, I grew up the son of German immigrant parents, so I grew up being teased and called 'Fritz' at school. When I married my wife and went to live in Vienna, I was teased for being a Brit.

- Peter Morgan

Wife, Being, German, Teased

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