I don't have to take this abuse from you -- I have hundreds of people waiting in line to abuse me!

Somewhere there's a score being kept, so you have an obligation to live life as well as you can, be as engaged as you can.

I've never made any horrible, horrible movies. If you don't ruin your reputation, you can always get work.

People say I'm difficult and sometimes that's a badge of honour.

The way financing for independent movies goes is great. You get the money from the guy who's actually doing the distribution in France. You say, "Do you want a piece of this movie?" And he's got to sell this movie to get his money back. That's the brains of it; that's the genius of this financing. "You want Germany? Give us a million dollars and you've got Germany."

I knew that's where I was going. I knew we were going to Italy. You couldn't make this movie in America at this price. I knew it was going to be big. I knew there was going to be a ship involved and that there was going to be a set as big as the ship. I thought, well, here we go. But I knew that was where he was headed. He had been going this way for some time. All directors, once they have some success, they want to spend a whole heck of a lot of money. (Something else can't hear.)

Everyone needs to take a vacation from the sort of automatic things you do.