I mean, look, I love movies, not just the ones I make... In fact, I don't like the movies I make very much.

Whenever I'm asked about independent cinema, I think of what Fidel Castro said during the Cold War about the league of non-aligned nations. He said that really, there were only two non-aligned nations: the U.S. and the USSR. The rest of us have to be aligned somewhere. I say similarly, in a way, Paramount, Sony, and Warner Bros. are the only true independents, because they're the only ones who can do whatever they want and have distribution for their films built in.

Joe E. Lewis said, 'Money doesn't buy happiness but it calms the nerves.' And that is how I feel about a film being well-received.

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.

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.

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

I make comedies and I always try... I don't try but I allow to have at least 5% of the jokes or have some jokes that I know will be understood by only about 5% of the audience. It's that guy in the corner who gets it and laughs. But he has to have his jokes too. That's part of my audience. Part of my audience is the people who will only get certain things.