In the future it will become even easier for old negatives to become lost and be ?replaced? by new altered negatives. This would be a great loss to our society. Our cultural history must not be allowed to be rewritten.

When people talk to me about the digital divide, I think of it not so much about who has access to what technology as about who knows how to create and express themselves in the new language of the screen. If students aren't taught the language of sound and images, shouldn't they be considered as illiterate as if they left college without being able to read and write?

If America is the pursuit of happiness, the best way to pursue happiness is to help other people.

I like to say that films are never finished, they're only abandoned.

Anybody that makes films knows the film is never finished. It's abandoned or it's ripped out of your hands, and it's thrown into the marketplace, never finished. It's a very rare experience where you find a filmmaker who says, "That's exactly what I wanted. I got everything I needed. I made it just perfect. I'm going to put it out there."

One of the amazing things about 'Seven Samurai' is that there are a lot of characters. And considering you have so many, and they all have shaved heads, and you've got good guys and bad guys and peasants, you get to understand a lot of them without too much being said.

The theme that runs through my movies is the fact that we create barriers for ourselves....because we say, Well, I can't do that. But in the end, you can't do it unless you can imagine yourself succeeding at it.