It takes tremendous discipline to control the influence, the power you have over other people's lives.

Once you finish a film, it doesn't belong to you anymore - it belongs to the audience to interpret it the way they feel like interpreting.

I mean, I've always been a libertarian. Leave everybody alone. Let everybody else do what they want. Just stay out of everybody else's hair.

I have great respect for the FBI, and I know that there have been some rumors lately that the FBI was disenchanted because of what we were doing in story, or doing a certain take: that's not true. Actually the FBI was tremendously enthusiastic about us doing [ J. Edgar Hoover ] film.

The more time you have to think things through, the more you have to screw it up.

If you don't pay attention to history, you're destined to repeat it.

You're as young as you feel. As young as you want to be. There's an old saying I heard from a friend of mine. People ask him, "Why do you look so good at your age?" He'll say, "Because I never let the old man in." And there's truth to that. It's in your mind, how far you let him come in.