"Four a.m., having just returned from an evening at the Golden Spheres, which despite the inconveniences of heat, noise and overcrowding was not without its pleasures. Thankfully, there were no dogs and no children. The gowns were middling. There was a good deal of shouting and behavior verging on the profligate, however, people were very free with their compliments and I made several new acquaintances. There was Lindsay Doran of Mirage, wherever that might be, who is largely responsible for my presence here, an enchanting companion about whom too much good cannot be said. Mr. Ang Lee, of foreign extraction, who most unexpectedly appeared to understand me better than I understand myself. Mr. James Shamis, a most copiously erudite person and Miss Kate Winslet, beautiful in both countenance and spirit. Mr. Pat Doyle, a composer and a Scot, who displayed the kind of wild behaviour one has learned to expect from that race. Mr. Mark Kenton, an energetic person with a ready smile who, as I understand it, owes me a great deal of money. [Breaks character, smiles.] TRUE!! [Back in character.] Miss Lisa Henson of Columbia, a lovely girl and Mr. Garrett Wiggin, a lovely boy. I attempted to converse with Mr. Sydney Pollack, but his charms and wisdom are so generally pleasing, that it proved impossible to get within ten feet of him. The room was full of interesting activity until 11 p.m. when it emptied rather suddenly. The lateness of the hour is due, therefore, not to the dance, but to the waiting in a long line for a horseless carriage of unconscionable size. The modern world has clearly done nothing for transport."

"Thank you very much. Good Heavens. Um, I can't thank you enough, Hollywood Foreign Press, for honouring me in this capacity. I don't wish to burden you with my debts, which are heavy and numerous but, um, I think that everybody involved in the making of this film knows that we owe all our pride and all our joy to the genius of Jane Austen. And, um, it occurred to me to wonder how she would react to an evening like this... [Puts down statue on stage, reads paper] This is what I came up with"

"Unfortunately sometimes I have to fly, but I don't fly nearly as much as I did, because of my carbon footprint, and I plant a lot of trees. [Interviewer: Do you fly economy, to... reduce your carbon footprint?] I bloody don't, no!"

"Before I came, I went to visit Jane Austen's grave in Winchester Cathedral to pay my respects, you know, and tell her about the grosses. [Laughter] I don't know how she would react to an evening like this, but I do hope -- I do hope she knows how big she is in Uruguay."

"Originally, everything I wrote I wanted to perform, to flesh it out, and I didn't have the courage just to let people read and make their own decisions. I had to do that with this. And some of the stuff people really did wonderfully. Pru Scales did a monologue and just transformed it in my eyes — I thought it was rather ordinary and she made it into something really terrific."

"Profound thanks to Columbia Pictures and the lovely forms of Lisa Henson, Gary Wiggan, and Mark Canter for hiring a first-time writer; to James Shamus for his rare intelligence; to Sidney Pollack for asking all the right questions, like 'Why couldn't these women go out and get a job?' Why, indeed. To the cast and crew, for being impeccable. To my friend and my teacher, Lindsay Doran, for being the single most frustrating reason why I can't claim all the credit for myself. And finally, I would like with your permission to dedicate this Oscar to our director, Ang Lee. Ang, wherever you are, this is for you. [Beaming smile]"

"I don't really know how to thank the Academy for this. And if I try we'll be here till Christmas. So I better get on..."

"Oh dear me — it's too late to do anything but accept you and love you — but when you were quite a little boy, somebody ought to have said "hush" just once!"

"I want my dark lady. I want my angel. I want my tempter, I want my Freia with her apples. I want the lighter of my seven lamps of beauty, honour, laughter, music, love, life and immortality. I want my inspiration, my folly, my happiness, my divinity, my madness, my selfishness, my final sanity and sanctification, my transfiguration, my purification, my light across the sea, my palm across the desert, my garden of lovely flowers, my million nameless joys, my day's wage, my night's dream, my darling and my star."

"Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm."

"That's because Tallulah's always skating on thin ice, and they want to be there when it breaks."

"She has such pretty little eyes — And they're so close together!"

"The deep, deep peace of the double-bed after the hurly-burly of the chaise-longue."

"Does it really matter what these affectionate people do — so long as they don’t do it in the streets and frighten the horses!"

"My family were of good English peasant class from St. John's Wood. My father dealt in stocks and shares and my mother also had a lot of time on her hands."

"Contrary to popular belief, English women do not wear tweed nightgowns."

"Jesus, if I know one thing about the industry, it's that it's a moment. A flash in the pan. That's what's lovely about it. But it's hard, because one moment you're the hot thing, and the next moment — you're not. And there's no rhyme or reason for it."

"I haven't got a clue about how much I weigh. I do not own any scales. And I have noticed it creates an anger in people who are not skinny. People like to blame their insecurities on other people."

"I went from everyone saying, "She-can't-act-she-can't-act-she-can't-act," to an Oscar nomination. So there was something quite sublime about that!"

"A lot of times in cinema today the women are overly sentimental, so I constantly try to do the opposite. I like strident women."

"Prince William definitely isn't my type, he's too horsey-looking."

"There is definitely a fuck-you quality to the characters I choose."

"I don't like my legs. … A good pair of legs on someone else always makes me jealous. I don't have any tits so I can't show cleavage. The only part I really like is my stomach."

"I think it's great that the discussions are finally being allowed to be had [about feminism], as opposed to anybody mentioning feminism and everybody going, 'Oh, fucking shut up.' Somehow, [feminism] became a dirty word. I thought it was really weird for a long time, and I think it's great that we're coming out of that"