When newspapers started to publish the box office scores of movies, I was horrified. Those results are totally fake because they never include the promotion budget.

A director is the ringmaster of a circus that's inventing itself.

The internet in hotels should be free - and I really resent it when they charge you five dollars for a bottle of water beside your bed.

Always make your work be personal. And, you never have to lie... There is something we know that's connected with beauty and truth. There is something ancient. We know that art is about beauty, and therefore it has to be about truth.

I never went to a psychologist or psychiatrist in my life. Never. You know, Italians are a little prejudiced against that kind of thing.

An essential element of any art is risk. If you don't take a risk then how are you going to make something really beautiful, that hasn't been seen before?

I always knew what I thought the theme was, the core, in one word. In 'The Godfather' it was succession. In 'The Conversation' it was privacy. In 'Apocalypse' it was morality.