I think there's a general sense that the belief structures that existed and carried civilization forward have weakened to the point where they can no longer support it. They are not powerful enough to do it anymore because there is not enough serious belief in them.

The past is history, the future's a mystery.

Most of my movies get about a third raves, a third vicious attacks, and a third in-between.

In a way, I think that the movie Fight Club [1999] did a weird, negative thing to boxing, culturally. I mean, it is sort of similar to what has happened to the novel. For however many good novels are written, the novel itself has completely lost its place.

The collaborator has to be someone who understands that his role is to help you articulate what you want, but at the same time is not just going to be mechanically obeying, but adding to, supplementing, and coming up with stuff.

Boxing is not coming back. There's not going to be a new Ali or a new Tyson. What's happened to movies is happening to boxing-that is, too much availability of alternative, similar entertainment. Movies started to become diluted with the advent of television; that has been mirrored by the dilution of boxing, with kickboxing and absolute, extreme homicidal fighting.

I'd been basically anchored in New York for three years, but I fled to L.A. after the funeral and decided that I had to start a movie immediately. It was the only way to avoid becoming overwhelmed by depression. And that meant financing the film myself because there is no such thing as "immediately" in movies that one writes.