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

The problem with anger is that it's so consuming. You've got to take it easy on yourself at a certain point.

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

I grew up in the Lower East Side, an Italian American - more Sicilian, actually.

[Action's] a Western thing. We think of the hero going into battle, rebelling against a government or an oppressor, but [in KUNDUN] action is nonaction or what appears to be nonaction. That's a hard concept for Western audiences. . . . We wanted to show a kind of moral action, a spiritual action, an emotional action. Some people will pick up on it; some won't.

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.

Howard Hughes was this visionary who was obsessed with speed and flying like a god... I loved his idea of what filmmaking was.