Sex is the invention of a very clever venereal disease.

For example I don't work with William Hurt the same way that I will work with Viggo. They're different guys and they work in different ways. So a good sensitive director has his general style and technique and personality that he uses but you don't impose that on the actors.

I have a real aversion to ghosts because I don't believe in them. I think ghosts are actually a religious concept, because it means you believe in an afterlife. And I don't.

Do you remember when you found out you wouldn't live forever? People don't talk about this, but everybody had to go through it because you're not born with that knowledge.

The more unique your film is and unusual it is and difficult it is, the harder it is to get it financed. That's why a lot of good filmmakers are doing television. They do HBO movies.

My understanding of life is very existential. I think that we are our bodies. There's nothing else, and when we die, that's it. No afterlife.

I also think the relationship I have with my audience is a lot more complex than what Hitchcock seemed to want his to be - although I think he had more going on under the surface as well.