Sam Taylor-Johnson

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

“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.”

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

“The way I was grew up gave me a slight fearlessness and a sense of independence. There are things about it that have definitely informed me. And then, as a parent, it's done the opposite. 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...”

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

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

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

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

“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 a...”

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

“I like Alexander McQueen's work a lot: he's always pushing boundaries, and he's rough around the edges.”

“Finding your place as an artist is the hardest thing. You come out of college with what feels like a Mickey Mouse degree that qualifies you for nothing in the real world.”

“When I decide I want something, I go in like an Exocet missile.”

“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.”

“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 muc...”

“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...”

“I only photograph myself at poignant moments in my life as a check of where I am and how large my thighs are.”

“I love showing my scar on my tummy - it is shaped like a question mark.”

“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.”