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

The only way I was able to defend myself was to be able to take punishment. Then I got a lot of respect. They said, "Oh, he's okay, he can take it. Don't hit him." The guys were pretty big, and I had asthma.

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

I've seen many, many movies over the years, and there are only a few that suddenly inspire you so much that you want to continue to make films.

Our world is so glutted with useless information, images, useless images, sounds, all this sort of thing. It's a cacophony, it's like a madness I think that's been happening in the past twenty-five years. And I think anything that can help a person sit in a room alone and not worry about it is good.

When I'm making a film, I'm the audience.

The Five Points was the toughest street corner in the world. That's how it was known. In fact, Charles Dickens visited it in the 1850s and he said it was worse than anything he'd seen in the East End of London.