That had always been my purpose: to get people back in touch with what makes us so valuable as a human race.

Learning to make films is very easy. Learning what to make films about is very hard. What you’ve really got to do is focus on learning as much about life, and about various aspects of it first.

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.

I want to live where I want to live, and I will make films because I love to make films.

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

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.

I've always just followed my own course, whatever I found the most interesting to me at the moment. I've never had a real plan of, "I want to get from here to there, and I've got to do this."