Richard Eyre

“The arts are weapons of understanding and weapons of happiness.”

“I envy the happiness of others... I envy the sense of belonging... I seem always to be remaking myself.”

“I believe there is a relationship between having an interest in the arts and the behaviour of society as a whole. Some politicians find it difficult that the arts is a weapon of happiness... Politics is often about deprivation rather than the opening up of ideas and nourishing creative endeavour.”

“A place makes a deep impression on you when you're young. It lives with you. It's like your childhood. It fertilises the imagination.”

“Naming a baby is an act of poetry, for many people the only creative moment of their lives.”

“I sort of feel that climate change will be solved by science. I just feel instinctively that we will find a way of saving ourselves. But I am less confident that we won't destroy ourselves in other ways.”