Cinema really lends itself well to big, archetypal stories, you know, classic old stories and you need kind of a weird, big terrain like the Japanese plains for Samurai movies or the West. You need that for these giants to walk around.

The kindest thing a director can do is look with open eyes at everything.

I think that Peter Jennings is the only decent one of the big three.

Forgiving yourself may be for many people, at least for myself, extremely difficult. And then in a larger context, I will say that I'm constantly astonished by those who pray daily, "Forgive me my sins as I forgive those who sin against me," and beat very loudly the war drum.

I've always approached screenplays and so forth with, "How would it really happen?" Not "What's the movie version?" but "What's the real-life version?" Then I just follow my nose.

I don't feel despair because I am able to make the films I want to make, and that gives me hope.

If you have your movies so that everyone understands everything, I think that's probably not a very good movie.