Everybody has talent and it's just a matter of moving around until you've discovered what it is. A talent is a combination of something you love a great deal and something you can lose yourself in - something that you can start at 9 o'clock, look up from your work and it's 10 o'clock at night - and also something that you have a talent, not a talent for, but skills that you have a natural ability to do very well. And usually those two things go together.

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.

People who alter or destroy works of art and our cultural heritage for profit or as an exercise of power are barbarians.

Changes are not unusual - I mean, most movies, when they release them, they make changes. But somehow, when I make the slightest change, everybody thinks it's the end of the world.

After you've done the first feature, then you have heck of a difficult time getting your second film off the ground. They look at your first film and they say, "Oh well, we don't want you anymore."

Film is not an easy occupation. There's a lot of occupations that are difficult and film is one of them.

I'd be the first person to say I can't write dialogue. My dialogue is very utilitarian and is designed to move things forward. I'm not Shakespeare. It's not designed to be poetic.