I love to take actors to a place where they open a vein. That’s the job. The key is that I make it safe for them to open the vein.

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

Yes. The whole point about laughter is it's like mercury: you can't catch it, you can't catch what motivates it - that's why it's funny.

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.

There’s nothing better than discovering, to your own astonishment, what you’re meant to do. It’s like falling in love.

Take off all your clothes and walk down the street waving a machete and firing an Uzi, and terrified citizens will phone the police and report, There's a naked person outside!

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.