I don't have a problem with Werner Herzog.

With 'New Rose Hotel,' I knew that I was getting paid a $100,000 fee to write, produce, and direct, and that's all I was going to get.

I don't need to push myself. I don't need to sharpen my own knife and slit my throat. I'm trying to chill it and find an equilibrium and a balance to my work.

The more you get into any religion, it becomes the same. It really becomes how you treat other people and how you get outside yourself. How you look to help other people, and how you get out of this 'I, me, mine' type of thing.

Mulberry Street was the beating heart of the Italian-American experience, but you don't find those gangsters now. I live with a bunch of yuppies and models.

Life is what happens when you're doing other things, right?

My grandfather lived to be 96 years old. He was born in a town outside of Salerno in Southern Italy. He came to New York when he was 20. He lived in the States from age 20 to 96, but he brought his culture with him, he brought his food with him, he brought his language with him, he never spoke a word of English.