I wanted to be a film student again, as a man in my 60s. To go someplace alone and see what you can cook up, with non-existent budgets. I didn't want to be surrounded by comforts and colleagues, which you have when when you're a big time director. I wanted to write personal works.

I like to work in the morning. I like to sometimes go to a place where I'm all alone where I'm not going to get a phone call early that hurts my feelings, because once my feelings are hurt, I'm dead in the water.

If the movie works, nobody notices the mistakes... If the movie doesn't work, the only thing people notice are mistakes.

The very earliest people who made film were magicians.

'Godfather' was very classical, the way it was shot, the style, the whole driving force of it was more classical, almost Shakespearean.

Frank Capra was a prop man, I think. John Ford was a prop man. It was a little bit of a father and son thing, and you kind of worked your way up.

I like simplicity; I don't need luxury.