Directing is mystifying. It's a long, long, skid on an icy road, and you do the best you can trying to stay on the road... If you're still here when you come out of the spin, it's a relief. But you've got to have the terror if you're going to do anything worthwhile.

Nerves provide me with energy... It's when I don't have them, when I feel at ease, that's when I get worried.

The only safe thing in filmmaking is to take a chance.

Any good movie is filled with secrets.

In making movies, time is so short-because it is so expensive-that we tend to neglect the place from which the best ideas come, namely that part of ourselves that dreams. The unconscious is our best collaborator.

I have never understood people dividing things into dramas and comedies.

It's not a filmmaker's job to explain his technique but to tell his story the best way he can.