My character Lena is somebody who responds to people in a very simple way. I didn't have to take myself off to a darkened room to concentrate I just had to try and be open. It's an interesting subtle relationship.

Poetry is of so subtle a spirit that in the pouring out of one language into another it will evaporate.

Poetry is the most subtle of the literary arts and students grow more ingenious by the year at avoiding it. If they can nip around Milton duck under Blake and collapse gratefully into the arms of Jane Austen a lot of them will.

The subtlety of nature is greater many times over than the subtlety of the senses and understanding.

Human subtlety will never devise an invention more beautiful more simple or more direct than does nature because in her inventions nothing is lacking and nothing is superfluous.

A lot of my music is slow and subtle. The subtly is what I enjoy about making music.

What I was going for in the first two albums I didn't necessarily achieve. Because I was young and because it was my first time out. And the second album was such a 'quickie' sort of 'Let's just get it over with!' But the kind of music I make there's a lot of subtlety in it. And I think it takes a couple of listens to actually really get it.

I often begin movies with music in my head it's a very important dimension to me. Not just the music itself but how to use music in film: when and how and subtlety. I don't like to be too sweet in my stories and I like the abrasive clang the contrasting of sounds and cultures.

In movies there are some things the French do that Americans are increasingly incapable of doing. One is honoring the complexities of youth. It's a quiet difficult undertaking requiring subtlety in a filmmaker and perception and patience from us.

We didn't care if we were well-liked as long as the movies were good. We served the movie - that was our master at Miramax. In our second incarnation the movie is still the master but we're getting the same results in more subtle ways.