I also thought of myself as the Sonny Barger of the film industry.

I suppose when I started out I would have liked to have been the darling of critics or something, but everybody wants to be loved and admired.

The filmmakers always have a great level of control.

I felt that the Star Wars series became very pretentious as time went on. Just heavy and leaden.

A lot of directors don't know what they want to do. Every director I've seen that was a good director that I've admired knew exactly what he wanted to do. They didn't sit there and think about it.

No, you're either born a writer, a storyteller, or you're not.

I became a loner. I became a mountain man. A lot of those things are very good qualities and they help you do your work, help you be singular and keep the artistic integrity of your work intact, but they don't make it very easy to live your life.