Even if one understands that what one is doing is mad, it is indeed still madness -

It's the difference between a parable and a pamphlet. A parable discusses things that are relevant in the past, the future, and the present - regardless of the outcome in the present. A pamphlet, on the other hand, is completely concerned with affecting an outcome in the present, the most immediate present.

Oliver Stone will never be happy with the first take. He wants more than that. When you’re delivering your lines, he’ll stop you and tell you some kind of riddle about the character and you have to go away and figure that out. If you’re hoping for him to give you all the answers, then you’re in for a long day.

You can always go back to not making any money, and then you get the freedom. And I'm going to continue doing it, because it really is a fantastic sense of liberation.

: There are only two on-buttons for fear, in any permutation you want. One is when something that shouldn't be is, meaning a presence. And, the other one is an absence.

If you don't take it personally, the partnership between producers and directors is very intimate.

The idea for me is that if the movie connects with you the way I want it to connect with you, you should be experiencing both the horror and the wonder as a child would. From a child's point of view. When we're kids, brutality registers differently than when we are adults. Because as adults, we get too used to violence.