I've always tried to be aware of what I say in my films, because all of us who make motion pictures are teachers - teachers with very loud voices.

You want people to think. You want people to be emotionally moved. And there's a theory behind that in terms of storytelling. It has been around for thousands of years. And that's where something like live theater or a live performance is something that is very valuable because you get instant feedback from your audience and you kind of know the things that work and the things that don't work.

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.

Young people don't have a fantasy life anymore, not the way we did. All they've got is Kojak and Dirty Harry. There's all these kids running around wanting to be killer cops.

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

None of the films I've done was designed for a mass audience, except for 'Indiana Jones.' Nobody in their right mind thought 'American Graffiti' or 'Star Wars' would work.

If the boy and girl walk off into the sunset hand-in-hand in the last scene, it adds 10 million to the box office.