I used to love going into local hardware stores, to look at little things they made locally. Nowadays it's harder, though you can still do it in Vietnam.

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 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.

My film is not a movie; it's not about Vietnam. It is Vietnam.

I bring to my life a certain amount of mess.

It's ironic that at age 32, at probably the greatest moment of my career, with The Godfather having such an enormous success, I wasn't even aware of it, because I was somewhere else under the deadline again.

I remember growing up with television, from the time it was just a test pattern, with maybe a little bit of programming once in a while.