I worked as hard to write the worst film of the year as I did to write the best film of the year.

For me in a film, almost every scene you end up cutting a bit of the start of it out, and some of the end of it out because there's always...once you've rehearsed it and shot it, it feels like a couple of times and you can always get out sooner.

I know a lot of directors have a whole staff of people trying to find their next film for them. I always just end up writing mine.

Its as boring to see a completely evil villain as it is to see a completely good guy.

I think writing is a difficult thing and you need to suffer a little bit, even if it's just to sit there and think what an idiot you are and how anyone else could do this better than you can.

I think Cool Hand Luke was probably the first movie in which I was aware of the writing as its own separate thing. It was that speech when the guy reads Paul Newman the riot act. The speech about going in the box.

I think test screenings with an audience are useful because they have no dog in the fight, they just say how they feel.