If it's a low-brow bawdy comedy, it's got to stand the chance of succeeding as such. If it's an intellectual piece, a drama, and so forth. And of course, once you've determined the level of the piece, do it the best you know how. And then don't make concessions. To audiences, or to pursestrings, or whatever.

We are all racing towards death. No matter how many great, intellectual conclusions we draw during our lives, we know they're all only man-made, like God. I begin to wonder where it all leads. What can you do, except do what you can do as best you know how.

If I'm in theatre, cinema doesn't even cross my mind. Similarly when I'm making a film, theatre doesn't cross my mind.

We're all far too afraid of being so arrogant to say "Either you can or you can't."

Something like 'Alien,' that was not so easy. If there's any genre I wouldn't mind not having to do anymore, it would be science fiction. It's just all to do with the toys, and there's so much hanging around.

I put everything I can into the mulberry of my mind and hope that it is going to ferment and make a decent wine. How that process happens, I'm sorry to tell you I can't describe.

The great joke is that a realist is an optimistic pessimist. That's very witty. Whether it's truthful or not, that I don't know.