I'm not a Hollywood director. I'm an in spite of Hollywood director.

I was saying as a joke the other day that I love film editing, I know how to cut a picture, I think I know how to shoot it, but I don't know how to light it. And I realize it's because I didn't grow up with light. I grew up in tenements.

Well, I think in my own work the subject matter usually deals with characters I know, aspects of myself, friends of mine - that sort of thing.

As a child I had terrible asthma.

I was born in 1942, so I was mainly aware of Howard Hughes' name on RKO Radio Pictures.

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.

My working-class Italian-American parents didn't go to school, there were no books in the house.