If you write an original, its like you went in and dug a well, and you hit oil. But an adaptation, its like the oil wells on fire, and they bring you in to put the fire out and get it working again - or something like that.

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.

If you write an original, its like you went in and dug a well, and you hit oil. But an adaptation, its like the oil wells on fire, and they bring you in to put the fire out and get it working again - or something like that.

In exchange for ten years of being on top, I'm gonna end up in prison or I'm gonna end up dead, and there's something fascinating about that.

If Im in the bookstore, and I see a 700-page novel, my first thought is, Ooh, how could you cut this down to size and make a movie out of it?

Because I've been at it so long and very steadily, I have a lot of credits, but I probably have twice as many scripts that were never made for whatever reason.

In my own experience, the scripts that I wrote, if they didn't go within two years and become a film, they never went and no one ever came looking for them.