Anybody whose mind is functioning at all can't be content with the way the world works.

If I worked in my apartment, I'd never leave my apartment.

A lot of the issues of rhythm in film are found in the editing because it's very rare that any sequence is the sequence that is shot.

I think I've learned a lot about how to make movies, and particularly about how to edit movies by thinking about how similar problems are resolved in other forms. The issues in all forms are the same in an abstract sense, aren't they? Characterization, abstraction, metaphor, passage of time... Whether it's a movie, a novel, a play, or a poem, those issues exist. And each person resolves them differently.

I don't like to read novels where the novelist tells me what to think about the situation and the characters. I prefer to discover for myself.

My job as a film editor is to construct a dramatic narrative because otherwise it's just a chaotic arrangement of sequences.

One's relationship to time is complicated, and sometimes a day will drag on forever and sometimes it'll be over in a flash. When you look back, "I'm old," after 40 or 60 years, I can't believe I'm as old as I am.