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It may sound too good to be true, but once you've seen the happiest people in your life who have nothing, you really start rethinking what the world, and society, tells us that we need to be happy.

Anyone who has ever been privileged to direct a film also knows that, although it can be like trying to write 'War and Peace' in a bumper car in an amusement park, when you finally get it right, there are not many joys in life that can equal the feeling.

I think perfect happiness has everything to do with learning to be content with what I have.

Seeing someone happy on set is just a very small slice of the reality of an actor's life.

Family or love or romance, whatever it is, is not restricted to perfect people. If it were, it wouldn't exist. All of that comes out in my work in some way.

'Shakespeare in Love' was a particularly happy film.

I don't think anyone, no matter what, can find perfect happiness until they understand exactly who they are and how every little thing they do can affect the world around them. I think perfect happiness would be a world where everyone is constantly striving to understand everyone else.

My idea of perfect happiness is a healthy family, peace between nations, and all the critics die.

I have a real problem with watching movies where I see this perfect woman who is married to the man in question, who has a perfect life, who has perfect hair, perfect clothes, and doesn't give you any of the kind of reality that you're used to.

A happy life must be to a great extent a quiet life, for it is only in an atmosphere of quiet that true joy dare live.