I have a supermarket full of ideas and the challenge is how many ideas can I get in my cart before I'm gone. When you're doing it, you're not focused on success. It's not a matter of modesty. You're simply trying to get all the things done that you want to get done in your life.

I've discovered that most critics themselves are cinematically illiterate. They don't really know much about movies. They don't know the history. They don't know the technology. They don't know anything. So for them to try to analyze it, they're lost.

I'm the one who has to have everybody throw rocks at me all the time, so at least if they're going to throw rocks at me, they're going to throw rocks at me for something I love rather than something I think is not very good, or at least something I think is not finished.

I grew up in San Francisco. And so I'm informed in a certain kind of way about, you know, believing in democracy and believing in America. And I'm a very ardent patriot.

We seemed to be drifting as a society - losing touch with the basic concepts of right and wrong.

There is no why. We are. Life is beyond reason.

Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter.