My films really have to be a part of a whole body of work that says something to me.

I'm often asked by younger filmmakers, 'Why do I need to look at old movies?' I've made a number of pictures in the last 20 years and the response I have to give them is that I still consider myself a student. The more pictures I've made in 20 years, the more I realize I really don't know. And I'm always looking for something or someone that I could learn from. I tell the younger filmmakers, and the young students, that do it like painters used to do—that painters do—study the old masters, enrich your palette, expand the canvas. There's always so much more to learn.

I think all the great studio filmmakers are dead or no longer working. I don't put myself, my friends, and other contemporary filmmakers in their category. I just see us doing some work.

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

Watching a Kubrick film is like gazing up at a mountaintop. You look up and wonder, how could anyone have climbed that high?

Eradicating a religion of kindness is, I think, a terrible thing for the Chinese to attempt.

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