You know, I'm really not that competent at describing things musically.

You write who you are. But you also cheat, and youwrite what you want to be. It's embarrasing to be the guy who madethe movie, knowing you're not exactly who you want to be.

My writing has a lot to do with who I am, and what my life is like, and my relationships to people.

Well I'd really love to work with Robert De Niro, because he's still the most talented actor out there.

Screenwriting is like ironing. You move forward a little bit and go back and smooth things out.

We’re all children of Kubrick, aren’t we? Is there anything you can do that he hasn’t done?

My filmmaking education consisted of finding out what filmmakers I liked were watching, then seeing those films. I learned the technical stuff from books and magazines, and with the new technology you can watch entire movies accompanied by audio commentary from the director. You can learn more from John Sturges' audio track on the 'Bad Day at Black Rock' laserdisc than you can in 20 years of film school. Film school is a complete con, because the information is there if you want it.