Even if we die at 100, we're still dying young. I want at least 700 years. There's a lot of travelling and books to read and movies to see. I'm not going to squeeze it all in in 85 years.

I never wanted money worries to slow me down or make me take a job I didn't want.

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

I'd love to be a director-for-hire and get a nice paycheck and captain one of those big ships, but I think studios mistakenly think I want to write what I direct - which I don't. I write out of desperation, because I never get a script I like, other than "Nebraska." It's a matter of: What's the screenplay? Is it intelligent? Is it human? I don't care what genre, what scale. I'm here for the movies.

The biggest fear I have is to die with regrets, and of course that will come true.

I still have energy and some degree of youth, which is what a filmmaker needs.

A book suggests a whole world and story that I could have never thought of in a million years.