I hate tooting my own horn, but after Steven Spielberg saw Yentl, he said: "I wish I could tell you how to fix your picture, but I can't. It's the best film I've seen since Citizen Kane".

I find George Bush and Dick Cheney frightening, Donald Rumsfeld and John Ashcroft frightening.

I don't think I'm tough in a so called tough way. I'm tough on myself.

My friend Quincy Jones says we won our first Grammys together in 1963. I have no recollection. I don't even remember the room. When he showed me the picture, I remembered what I wore. But it's like awards don't mean anything.

The moral immune system of this country has been weakened and attacked, and the AIDS virus is the perfect metaphor for it. The malignant neglect of the last twelve years has led to breakdown of our country's immune system, environmentally, culturally, politically, spiritually and physically.

It's very often the artist who gives a voice to the voiceless by speaking up when no one else will.

Directing is so interesting. You know, it just sort of encompasses everything that you see, that you know, that you've felt, that you have observed.