Listen, if there's one sure-fire rule that I have learned in this business, it's that I don't know anything about human nature.

In a sense, I think a movie is really a little like a question and when you make it, that's when you get the answer.

I wrote the script of Patton. I had this very bizarre opening where he stands up in front of an American flag and gives this speech. Ultimately, I was fired. When the script was done, they hired another writer and that script was forgotten.

I've been failing for, like, ten or eleven years. When it turns, it'll turn. Right now I'm just trying to squeeze through a very tight financial period, get the movie out, and put my things in order.

I just admire people like Woody Allen, who every year writes an original screenplay. It's astonishing. I always wished that I could do that.

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

Lots of people have criticized my movies, but nobody has ever identified the real problem: I'm a sloppy filmmaker.