He took me from not being able to write a word in terms of writing screenplays to being the king of wooden dialogue.

Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.

On the Internet, all those same guys that are complaining I made a change are completely changing the movie. I’m saying: ‘Fine. But my movie, with my name on it, that says I did it, needs to be the way I want it.’

Storytelling is about two things; it's about character and plot.

Human nature means battling constantly between being completely self-absorbed and trying to be a communal creature. Nature makes you a communal creature. The ultimate single-minded, self-centered creature is a cancer cell. And mostly, we're not made up of cancer cells.

The influence of 'Hidden Fortress' comes up a lot because it was printed in a book once. The truth is, the only thing I was inspired by was the fact that it's told from the point of view of two peasants, who get mixed up with a samurai and princess and a lot of very high-level people.

I loved photography and everybody said it was a crazy thing to do because in those days nobody made it into the film business. I mean, unless you were related to somebody there was no way in.