I was forty the first time I directed. I formed a company in 1967, looking to the future. My dad taught me that whatever you do, do it well. Be the best at what you can do for that particular job in life. That always resonated with me.

You spend your life training to be an actor, observing people's characteristics so that you can design characters around what you've seen.

I found out that a lot of my liberal friends weren't liberal because they weren't liberal about approaching anybody else's ideas, or at least standing for it. They started getting really animalistic about, "I can't even associate with this guy. He's stupid. He's an idiot."

Let's take the work seriously, and not ourselves seriously.

I never expect anything. I am always amazed at why anybody goes to any movie or why anybody doesn't go to any movie. Any movie you make, you make it because you're hoping somebody wants to see it, but you never know.

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

Aging can be fun if you lay back and enjoy it.