Every year or so, I try to do something; it keeps me refreshed as to what's going on in front of the lens, and I understand what the actor is going through.

All my life, I never really felt comfortable anywhere in New York, except maybe in an apartment somewhere.

Sometimes God picks you up and tells you, "You've been messing around now. You're going to have to stop this, stop that, but I'll give you another chance." And you wonder why you're given another chance. It must be for something; it must be to celebrate life.

I go through periods, usually when I'm editing and shooting, of seeing only old films.

If you don’t like the films of Samuel Fuller , then you just don’t like cinema.

I can't really envision a time when I'm not shooting something.

[David Lean's] images stay with me forever. But what makes them memorable isn't necessarily their beauty. That's just good photography. It's the emotion behind those images that's meant the most to me over the years. It's the way David Lean can put feeling on film. The way he shows a whole landscape of the spirit. For me, that's the real geography of David Lean country. And that's why, in a David Lean movie, there's no such thing as an empty landscape.