Respect your efforts, respect yourself. Self-respect leads to self-discipline. When you have both firmly under your belt, that's real power.

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

You see, in this world, there's two kinds of people, my friend - those with loaded guns, and those who dig. You dig.

You definitely do not do films for that particular reason. You do them for yourself, for your satisfaction of creating this thing with characters and watching these characters take on real life - that's all you care about.

Great stories teach you something. That's one reason I haven't slipped into some sort of retirement: I always feel like I'm learning something new.

Abuse of power isn't limited to 'bad guys' in other nations. It happens in our own country. Those in power get jaded, deluded, and seduced by power itself. I have a reverence for individuality. I've always considered myself too individualistic to be either right-wing or left-wing. I like the libertarian view, which is to leave everyone alone. People should be able to be what they want to be and do what they want - as long as they're not harming other people. I am a libertarian.

If you've done what you intended and if nobody tampered with it, then it's yours. And if people don't like it, then they just don't agree with you on that subject matter, and that's life.