I think what happened there was just the budget would be too big to build these sets because nothing really exists here in New York of that period; you have to build it all.

You don't make up for your sins in church. You do it in the streets. You do it at home. The rest is bullshit and you know it.

I tried for about two semesters in a preparatory seminary. But I was about 15 and didn't fully understand what a vocation means.

I certainly wasn't able to get it when I was a kid growing up on the Lower East Side; it was very hard at that time for me to balance what I really believed was the right way to live with the violence I saw all around me - I saw too much of it among the people I knew.

Michael Jackson was extraordinary. When we worked together on 'Bad,' I was in awe of his absolute mastery of movement on the one hand, and of the music on the other. Every step he took was absolutely precise and fluid at the same time. It was like watching quicksilver in motion. He was wonderful to work with, an absolute professional at all times, and it really goes without saying... a true artist. It will be a while before I can get used to the idea that he's no longer with us.

Violence is not the answer, it doesn’t work any more. We are at the end of the worst century in which the greatest atrocities in the history of the world have occurred... The nature of human beings must change. We must cultivate love and compassion.

Any film, or to me any creative endeavour, no matter who you're working with, is, in many cases, a wonderful experience.