It sounds vain, but I could probably make a difference for almost everyone I ever met if I chose to involve myself with them either professionally or personally.

When I make a film I'm away from home for two to three months. So I want my kids to look at my films one day and say, I love his movies, I love his choices-because he loved them.

You can spend your life trying to be popular, and that's a tricky business. You can just try to be true to yourself.

I don't feel the need to direct. I tried to get other people to direct Dances, but they wouldn't do it. They all thought it was too long. One director wanted to cut the Civil War sequence. Another thought the white woman was very cliched.

If it's going to be wrecked, I want to make sure I wreck it.

I want to live forever, and I know I won't. I'm not afraid of dying. I'm only afraid of one thing: not being able to raise my kids.

It was an experience of a lifetime to sit only a few feet away from him [Castro] and watch him relive an experience he lived as a very young man.