I just tell you what a pleasure it is to get back to the kind of filmmaking I used to be allowed to do.

I'd like to think that my films are personal enough to exist without hearkening back to their respective novels.

Some of us have great original ideas and some of us depend on adaptations.

One of my favorite movies of all time is 'It's A Wonderful Life', which is a pretty interesting choice for a seasonal Christmas favorite, because it's about a guy who wants to commit suicide and is presented with reasons not to.

If you're going to succeed, you've got to be like one of those punch-drunk fighters in the old Warner Bros. boxing pictures: too stupid to fall down, you just keep slugging and stay on your feet.

Stanley Kubrick was a big inspiration. People accuse me of never using my own material. But when did Kubrick? You look at his films and they are completely unique... completely separate entities.

I think a story should take as long to tell as it is appropriate to that particular story.