Campion Quotes

I give everything to my work, and I like complex roles, characters that aren't obvious. I've been very lucky so far, and I'm dreaming of working with directors like Jane Campion, Susanne Bier and the Dardennes. But the gods will decide. ~ Eva Green

Lady Penelope Campion- the aging, frazzled, unsightly spinster who...
Who wasn't any of those things. Not by a mile. As fortune would have it, Lady Penelope Campion turned out to be a fair-haired, blue-eyed beauty.
In his mind's eye, he could still see her sprawled across his bed in her dressing gown. Like an all-grown-up Goldilocks, having crept into his house uninvited to test the mattress. Too soft, too hard...?
He didn't know her opinion, but Gabe's reaction was the latter. His cock was in its usual morning prime, standing at full mast. ~ Tessa Dare

Let now the chimneys blaze And cups o'erflow with wine ... The summer hath his joys, And winter his delights; Though love and all his pleasures are but toys, They shorten tedious nights. ~ Thomas Campion

Listen to me, you bastard."
"No," Gabriel said.
This simple response left Ash nonplussed. But fuming.
"I'm listening to exactly one person in this room," Gabriel said evenly. "It isn't you. The lady can speak for herself."
Oh. Penny's heart fluttered in her chest.
If by chance, he did mean to seduce her, repeating that sentence fifty times over might do the trick. ~ Tessa Dare

Women today are dealing with both their independence and also the fact that their lives are built around finding and satisfying the romantic models we grew up with. ~ Jane Campion

I seem to have been able to make a career out of doing what I feel like doing, so why not keep doing it? What's corrupting is wanting to be more important. You want to be more arty - you get your identity from that. Or you get your identity out of making more money. ~ Jane Campion

I think if it's interesting, it's interesting, and if it's not, it's not working. ~ Jane Campion

Jane Campion is a tough director. ~ Kate Winslet

'The Piano Lesson' is very sophisticated, easily the most adult or complex material I've attempted. It's the first film I've written that has a proper story, and it was a big struggle for me to write. It meant I had to admit the power of narrative. ~ Jane Campion

You know, sex is actually not so original as the way people love or the stories behind each relationship, which is what you remember. Sex is sex in the end. ~ Jane Campion

Women often postpone their lives, thinking that if they're not with a partner then it doesn't really count. They're still searching for their prince, in a way. And as much as we don't discuss that, because it's too embarrassing and too sad, I think it really does exist. ~ Jane Campion

How many writers still dare compare a woman to Nature, like Campion? - there is a garden in her face - how lovely ... ~ John Geddes

Performers are so vulnerable. They're frightened of humiliation, sure their work will be crap. I try to make an environment where it's warm, where it's OK to fail - a kind of home, I suppose. ~ Jane Campion

Because there is that sort of feeling that people don't know what to do with gaps in their lives. It's a scary notion, but actually, if you can stand in space just for a little while, a new door will open, or you'll be able to see in the dark after a while. You'll adjust. ~ Jane Campion

I do not believe every problem can be cured with a kitten. I do believe in love. And perhaps love can't cure every problem, but it makes the wounds heal a bit faster, with fewer scars. ~ Tessa Dare

There are, fortunately, very few people who can say that they have actually attended a murder. ~ Margery Allingham

I've had a lot of different responses to my films. I got a lot of support from 'The Piano,' the obvious one, but it feels like an ocean, with a lot going on - the goal is to keep alive. ~ Jane Campion

'The Piano' ended up on television. Everything ends up there anyway. ~ Jane Campion

I didn't like England. I couldn't take the look of the place or the style of friendship. I need more intimacy from people than is considered okay there, and I felt that my personality and my enthusiasms weren't understood. I had to put a big lid on myself. ~ Jane Campion

Never love unless you can bear with all the faults of man! ~ Thomas Campion

Oh, Penny. He must truly love you," Emma said. "Ash and Chase ate the sham. Gabriel made more."
Penny couldn't believe it. He must have arranged the menu. Of course, he would have done so days ago, well before their argument today. Nevertheless, she was touched by the gesture. He truly had planned this evening for her, down to the last detail. ~ Tessa Dare

And, I mean, I think poetry does need to be met to some extent, especially, I guess, 19th century poetry, and for me, it's just been so worth the effort. It's like I'm planting a garden in my head. ~ Jane Campion

As her dreams intensified, the red-haired girl became so real to Olivia that she found herself absentmindedly sketching her image during the day, bringing her to life on the page. She drew her surrounded by the flowers she held in her hands- white harebell, pink campion, and yellow cinquefoil- entwining them into the curls in her hair, until the flowers and plants were not around her, but part of her. A true child of the woodland. ~ Hazel Gaynor

I think I made good movies. ~ Jane Campion

Outside, Her Ladyship coaxed her dog back toward the house, lifting both dog and cart up the few steps to her door. Gabe turned away from the window, rubbing his temples.
"The situation is untenable, and that makes the house unsellable. No one wants to live next to a barnyard. I've tried reasoning with her, but when it comes to those animals, she's surprisingly tenacious."
Tenacious, indeed. And sufficiently reckless to trespass in a house after midnight and recover a parrot from a near-naked stranger's shoulder.
However, even that degree of tenacity had poor odds against sheer ruthlessness. Lady Penelope Campion had a softness for animals. ~ Tessa Dare

It's been such a deep and amazing journey for me, getting close to John Keats, and also I love Shelley and Byron. I mean, the thing about the Romantic poets is that they've got the epitaph of romantic posthumously. They all died really young, and Keats, the youngest of them all. ~ Jane Campion

I had this spooky psychological thing about 'The Piano' before it began, which was how everybody was going to go nuts on the set. Because a film tends to set up the way people are going to behave. ~ Jane Campion

Campion is a poet who knows that what a poet sees is nothing without a mixture of formal prowess and emotional insight. ~ David Biespiel

Your library is a reflection of your ideal self ~ Guy Campion Charlton

You've been hiding yourself, and you're good at it. A master of camouflage."
She laughed. "Camouflage?"
"That's the only possible explanation. You've made a frock from the same silk covering the drawing room walls, trimmed it with cat hair and feathers. Then when gentlemen visit, you stand still and blend in."
"You have a surprisingly vivid imagination."
"What I have is experience." He stopped in the road and turned to face her. "I've built a fortune by spotting things that are undervalued, dusting them off, and selling them at the proper price. I know a hidden treasure when I see one. ~ Tessa Dare

In some ways Holy Smoke is about people's journey to the heart. ~ Jane Campion

Fain would I wed a fair young man that night and day could please me, When my mind or body grieved that had the power to ease me. Maids are full of longing thoughtsthat breed a bloodless sickness, And that, oft I hear men say, is only cured by quickness. ~ Thomas Campion

Tragedy makes you grow up. ~ Jane Campion

I had a daughter who was 9 years old and I had the feeling I wasn't going to be a real parent if I didn't quit making movies for a while and spend time with her. I also felt that I'd made enough movies and said what I had to say at the time. ~ Jane Campion

How lucky country children are in these natural delights that lie ready to their hand! Every season and every plant offers changing joys. As they meander along the lane that leads to our school all kinds of natural toys present themselves for their diversion. The seedpods of stitchwort hang ready for delightful popping between thumb and finger, and later the bladder campion offers a larger, if less crisp, globe to burst. In the autumn, acorns, beechnuts, and conkers bedizen their path, with all their manifold possibilities of fun. In the summer, there is an assortment of honeys to be sucked from bindweed flowers, held fragile and fragrant to hungry lips, and the tiny funnels of honeysuckle and clover blossoms to taste. ~ Miss Read

As for how criticism of Keats' poetry relates to criticism of my own work, I'll leave that for others to decide. ~ Jane Campion

I think feature film can be quite conservative, because you have to now get audiences to come out, and it's quite a hard thing to do. Of course, television can be conservative too. ~ Jane Campion

Provide me with ink and paper and I will write. ~ Edmund Campion

You couldn't possibly."
"I can, and I will."
Heavens. His dark, intense stare nailed her slippers to the gravel path. Her heart pounded in her chest. And then he spoke the gruff, possessive words Penny had started to doubt she'd ever hear.
"I need you, Lady Penelope Campion. I'm not letting you go. ~ Tessa Dare

There are some things that are real, that you can see, that you can observe, like the moon, and grass and things. But for ideas to become real, they have to be played on your senses. ~ Jane Campion

He was on his second plate of steaming-hot kidney pie by the time his chewing slowed. And that's when he heard it. The faintest sounds escaping her room, sweeping across the antechamber, and sliding under the door to him.
The sounds of bathing.
A splash.
A trickle.
A faint series of drips.
It all added up to torture. Pure, liquid torture.
He pushed his plate away, propped his elbows on the table, and buried his face in his hands with a groan. Even plugging his ears didn't help.
When he closed his eyes, he could picture her. Naked in a shallow tub. Her feet dangling over the lip at one end, and her head reclined against the other. And all that water embracing her with heat, lapping at her nakedness, pouring over her most secret curves and furrows.
He was immediately, startlingly hard. ~ Tessa Dare

I have to admit that I had a lot of problems with poetry. ~ Jane Campion

There is a garden in her eyes, where roses and white lilies flow. ~ Thomas Campion

That night, I fell into a deep, travel-weary sleep, lulled by the familiar sound of the waterfall beyond the window. I dreamed of the beck fairies, a blur of lavender and rose-pink and buttercup-yellow light, flitting across the glittering stream, beckoning me to follow them toward the woodland cottage. There, the little girl with flame-red hair picked daisies in the garden, threading them together to make a garland for her hair. She picked a posy of wildflowers- harebell, bindweed, campion, and bladderwort- and gave them to me. ~ Hazel Gaynor

Between 18 and 26 I acted professionally, on the stage and a little bit on television. Acting is okay, but it's quite pressurized. Then I went to England - I wanted to reinvent myself. ~ Jane Campion

How irritating. Penny was still reeling and breathlessly from their kiss, and he... wasn't, apparently. Surely a considerate man would at least pretend to be a bit unmoored.
Then the door reopened, and he entered again. "Your Ladyship, I-"
After a lengthy pause, she prompted him. "You...?"
He frowned at the floor. "We."
We.
He said this as though it were a complete sentence, but even after several moments of contemplation, Penny could not make sense of it.
With an annoyed shake of his head, he wrenched open the door for the third time, stormed through it, and slammed it behind him with such derisive force that the portraits rattled on the wall.
Penny smiled to herself.
With that, she could be satisfied. ~ Tessa Dare

If all would lead their lives in love like me,
Then bloody swords and armor should not be;
No drum nor trumpet peaceful sleeps should move,
Unless alarm came from the camp of love. ~ Thomas Campion

What I have learned from my work up to now, is to try to be open, but also protect myself by not letting the good and the evil get too much importance. ~ Jane Campion

When I read Andrew Motion's biography, I wept. It's something about the purity of the story and how fresh it was because of the love letters Keats wrote. ~ Jane Campion

I did this Super-8 film at art school called 'Tissues,' this black comedy about a family whose father has been arrested for child molestation. I was absolutely thrilled by every inch of it, and would throw my projector in the back of my car and show it to anybody who would watch it. ~ Jane Campion

Won't you introduce us to your friend?" Thomasina swept an unsubtly flirtatious glance up Gabriel's armored figure. "What a fine figure you must strike at the Round Table."
"At any table." Tansy giggled.
Penny seethed. "It wouldn't be a masquerade if I gave him away, now would it?"
"I suppose we'll have to tease it out of him," Thomasina said.
Was it Penny's imagination, or did her gaze linger on his cod-piece?
Get your eyes off him, you vulture.
She chastened herself for entertaining a thought so mean. It was unkind to vultures. ~ Tessa Dare

But I think it's quite clear in my work that my orientation isn't political or doesn't come out of modern politics. ~ Jane Campion

Mr. Campion felt that among the ordeals by fire and by water there should now be numbered the ordeal by dinner at Socrates Close. ~ Margery Allingham

How on earth was this woman a spinster? She was an earl's daughter, surely possessed of a large dowry. If none of the title-hungry, debt-ridden layabouts in Mayfair had seen fit to propose marriage, simple logic dictated there must be something remarkably off-putting about her. An unbearably grating voice, perhaps. A snaggletooth, or poor personal hygiene.
But she displayed none of those features. She was young and pretty, with no detectable odor. Her teeth were a string of pearls, and she had a voice like sunshine. There was nothing off-putting about her whatsoever. She was... on-putting, in every way. ~ Tessa Dare

There's no artist in this world that doesn't enjoy the dream that if they have bad reviews now, the story of Keats can redeem them, in their fantasy or imagination, in the future. I think Keats' poem 'Endymion' is a really difficult poem, and I'm not surprised that a lot of people pulled it apart in a way. ~ Jane Campion

But short films are not inferior, just different. I think the short gives a freedom to film-makers. What's appealing is that you don't have as much responsibility for storytelling and plot. They can be more like a portrait, or a poem. ~ Jane Campion

My musical knowledge is so bad it's embarrassing. When composers discuss music with someone as primitive as myself, they have to talk about it in terms of senses and emotion, rather than keys and tempo. ~ Jane Campion

All our pride is but a jest. None are worst and none are best. Grief and hope and joy and fear Play their pageant everywhere. ~ Thomas Campion

With 'Bright Star' and with 'The Piano,' too, I felt a kind of sadness about it being in such a different era, because of my lack of experience with the era. And one of the ways I'd get over it is to remind myself that every film, even if it's contemporary, creates its own world. ~ Jane Campion

Everything I've read about Christians in prison for their non-violent witness to Christ rings true. Whether it's St. Paul, St. Edmund Campion, Dorothy Day or Dr. King, the experience remains the same: God comes close to those in prison. God's spirit is unleashed on the person who suffers imprisonment in a spirit of obedient love. God is a God of prisoners, a God of the poor, a God of the oppressed
but most of all, as the life of Jesus testifies, a God of nonviolent resisters. God is a God of nonviolence and peace. ~ John Dear

I feel that directors at times are like the janitors on the set. I am the secretary, I am the organizer, I am the maid, and I ask if they have eaten or rested. The best things are always out of your control. It's those moments that surpass the imagination that are thrilling. ~ Jane Campion

Dear Mr. Duke,

As requested, here is an inventory of the animals in my care:

*Bixby, a two-legged terrier.
*Marigold, a nanny goat of unimpeachable character, who is definitely not breeding.
*Angus, a three-year-old Highland steer.
*Regan, Goneril, and Cordelia- laying hens.
*Delilah, a parrot.
*Hubert, an otter.
*Freya, a hedgehog.
*Thirteen kittens of varying colors and dispositions.


Gabe leafed through the report in disbelief. It went on for pages. She'd given not only the names, breeds, and ages of every misbegotten creature, but she'd appended a chart of temperaments, sleeping schedules, preferred bedding, and a list of dietary requirements that would beggar a moderately successful tradesman. Along with the expected hay, alfalfa, corn, and seed, the animals required several pounds of mince weekly, daily pints of fresh cream, and an ungodly number of sardines.
The steer and thee goat, she insisted, must go to the same loving home. Apparently they were tightly bonded, whatever that meant, and refused to eat of parted.
The laying hens did not actually lay with any regularity. Their previous owners had grown frustrated with this paltry production, and thus they had come into Her Ladyship's care.
And the lucky bastard who accepted a ten-year-old hedgehog? Well, he must not only provide a steady supply of mealworms, but remain ever mindful of certain "traumatic experiences in her youth. ~ Tessa Dare

Secret fates
Guide our states
Both in mirth and mourning. ~ Thomas Campion

I'm not your 'poppet' any longer. I own you. And in the future, if you address me at all, it will be as Lady Penelope Duke." A more fitting idea struck her, and a cold smile touched her lips. "Better yet, you may call me the Duchess of Ruin. ~ Tessa Dare

I am delighted, one more time, by the daring of my species and the audacity of our flying machines. There is poetry and music in our technology, a beauty as touching as that of eagle, moss campion, raven or yonder limestone boulder shining under the Arctic sun. ~ Edward Abbey

It's harder being a woman director because on the whole women don't have husbands or boyfriends who are willing to be wives ~ Jane Campion

My sweetest Lesbia, let us live and love, And though the sager sort our deeds reprove, Let us not weigh them. Heaven's great lamps do dive Into their west, and straight again revive, But soon as once set is our little light, Then must we sleep one ever-during night. See Catullus 200:5. ~ Thomas Campion

Never weather-beaten sail more willing bent to shore. ~ Thomas Campion

For me, the most exciting thing is that Jane Campion is a woman we can all really look up to. She doesn't have the body of work that some other directors do - no woman director does - but her work is so consistently original, wonderful, masterful. ~ Allison Anders

I think the whole tension about romanticism is the way it builds and builds, and the moment it's consummated, the tension's over. ~ Jane Campion

In 1580, when William was sixteen, Campion passed through Warwickshire on his way to the more safely Catholic north. He stayed with a distant relative of Shakespeare's, Sir William Catesby, whose son Robert would later be a ringleader of the Gunpowder Plot. ~ Bill Bryson

The Seven Ps': Prior Planning and Preparation Prevents Piss-Poor Performance. ~ Phil Campion

I was shooting a mini-series for Sundance/BBC, called 'Top of the Lake,' that was shot by Jane Campion, who's a beautiful native New Zealander and famous film director. The role I was playing was very intense, and they shaved half my hair off. So, I looked like this post-apocalyptic character. ~ Jay Ryan

A poor old Widow in her weeds
Sowed her garden with wild-flower seeds;
Not too shallow, and not too deep,
And down came April -- drip -- drip -- drip.
Up shone May, like gold, and soon
Green as an arbour grew leafy June.
And now all summer she sits and sews
Where willow herb, comfrey, bugloss blows,
Teasle and pansy, meadowsweet,
Campion, toadflax, and rough hawksbit;
Brown bee orchis, and Peals of Bells;
Clover, burnet, and thyme she smells;
Like Oberon's meadows her garden is
Drowsy from dawn to dusk with bees.
Weeps she never, but sometimes sighs,
And peeps at her garden with bright brown eyes;
And all she has is all she needs --
A poor Old Widow in her weeds. ~ Walter De La Mare

We human beings are story-tellers, we pass on our values through the stories we tell. This is particularly true of Catholics, who get their identity through their histories, which they see as salvation history linking them to the saving actions of Christ. So, for Catholics, doing history – passing on the values by telling stories – is a pastoral imperative. We must look where we have been in order to know where we are going. ~ Edmund Campion

Eight years ago, I was drawn into Keats's world by Andrew Motion's biography. Soon I was reading back and forth between Keats's letters and his poems. The letters were fresh, intimate and irreverent, as though he were present and speaking. The Keats spell went very deep for me. ~ Jane Campion

I would love to see more women directors because they represent half of the population - and gave birth to the whole world. Without them writing and being directors, the rest of us are not going to know the whole story. ~ Jane Campion

Yet I would not die a maid, because I had a mother, As I was by one brought forth, I would bring forth another. ~ Thomas Campion

You, er..." He hesitated. "Not that I mind, but you may want to fix your frock."
She glanced downward. Seeing her exposed breast, she quickly tucked it back in her stays. "See what I mean? Heaps of humiliations. Heaps."
Gabe wondered if the past quarter hour went into her heaps of humiliations, or whether she regarded it as something else.
He wondered, but he wasn't going to ask.
On his part, he wouldn't be filing this memory under the heading of "Humiliations." Oh, no. It was going straight into the stash of "Fantasies" that every man kept under his mattress, figuratively if not literally.
He was never going to forget the taste of her, pure and sweet. The way her skin moved liked satin under his hands, warming to his touch.
And the way she'd responded to him? That was already etched on his brain.
I think it's the urges, she'd said.
The worrisome part of it was, their urges had gone unsatisfied.
They would remain so, he told himself. This afternoon had been a mistake. An enjoyable mistake, but a mistake nonetheless. Time to revive his judgement. Gabe could survive deprivation of all sorts, including this one.
He would not put his hands on Lady Penelope Campion again.
Absolutely not.
Definitely not.
Probably not.
Damn. ~ Tessa Dare

There was a big drive when I was at art school to make you aware of the economy of meaning - after all, this was still during the tail end of minimalism. Being responsible for everything you put in your picture, and being able to defend it. Keeping everything clear around you so you know what is operating. To open the wound and keep it clean. ~ Jane Campion

Albert Campion: 'I'm serious!'
Lugg: 'That's unhealthy in itself. ~ Margery Allingham

There is a different kind of vulnerability when a woman is directing ~ Jane Campion

If you start with a good idea, you can encapsulate it in a phrase and explain it. I like high-concept films. Everyone can get hold of it. I don't think there's any harm in that at all. ~ Jane Campion

When you first fall in love it's so thrilling, you can't wait to throw yourself away and make this new wonderful twosome. ~ Jane Campion

It was only when I saw films in my early 20s by Jane Campion, Mira Nair, Sally Potter and Kathryn Bigelow, I started to think, 'Oh, it's possible.' I dared to suggest that I wanted to train to be a film director. ~ Sarah Gavron

That's just how I see things on a base level: there's so much going on. Or at least I like to have that feeling. It's part of being interested in notions of reality apart from storytelling. I don't know if it has something to do with having an art school education, which makes you aware of the way visuals speak, or makes you trust them more. ~ Jane Campion

I fell in love again (laughs). ~ Jane Campion

I don't belong to any clubs, and I dislike club mentality of any kind, even feminism - although I do relate to the purpose and point of feminism. More in the work of older feminists, really, like Germaine Greer. ~ Jane Campion

To deny women directors, as I suspect is happening in the States, is to deny the feminine vision. ~ Jane Campion