All the animals come out at night.

'Taxi Driver' wasn't autobiographical in terms of the actual events, but I did draw on my own mental state.

The clock is impotent; mechanical time does not affect those living in an eternal present.

There's something wrong - the performance, the weather, the set design, the lighting. Something is not working. And so you say, "Give me 10 minutes." When you're first directing, you're terrified. But when you've been in that situation enough times, you know that under pressure, it will come to you.

That's just my disposition - to create a situation where you have to come up with something.

Don't ever let the viewer settle in and get ahead of you.

One of the things that I do like about filmmaking is that you find out how to solve new problems.