I'm perpetual tourist, and that's the best way to travel. Nobody gets used to you, you make new friends without having to hear anyone's everyday problems, and you jet back still feeling like a know-it-all.

You have to think of a new way to completely surprise people who think they're hip. I always said you could make an NC-17 movie with no sex and no violence. Now I don't know what that could possibly be, but if you could think it up, you'd have a hit.

I don't think I had a bad influence on anybody. I made people feel better about themselves.

People always ask me what I'm doing on the subway, but I love it! Sometimes I like to ride in the front car and look out the window at the rats.

What happened is that in the middle of my life I went away and in my own sense of hubris, pride, cynicism, thought, I am an autonomous being in the world, I can control things, I am God.' But my experiment at being God failed! And they do have a great saying in AA: 'Get down off the cross, we need the wood!' And the important thing is to realise you are not the centre of the universe, you are not God.

I have to talk about my movies. I have to give interviews to promote what I'm doing. But no one really knows my personal life. And if you don't have a personal life I feel bad for you.

People still come to Baltimore and say, "I didn't realize you made documentaries."