Very often I've known people who wouldn't say a word to each other, but they'd go to see movies together and experience life that way.

There's a way that the force of disappointment can be alchemized into something that will paradoxically renew you.

I think if you think of yourself as religious and if you're given a gift, some may not think it's that great a gift - some critics. But others might, you know. So you say, look - whether it's good, bad or indifferent, this is what I do.

Film in the 20th century, it's the American art form, like jazz.

I know that I come from mid-20th century America, urban, specifically downtown New York, specifically an Italian-American area, Roman Catholic - that's who I am. And a part of what I know is there's a decency to people who tried to make a living in the kind of world that was around us and also the Skid Row area of the Bowery; it impressed me.

The bottom line is, I tend to be going back to older and older music.

I also saw the Dalai Lama a few times.