I don't think it's a director's job to peek behind the curtain too much.

It's a gamble you take, the risk of alienating an audience. But there's a theory - sometimes it's better to confuse them for five minutes than let them get ahead of you for 10 seconds.

There’s a lot for screenwriters to steal from songwriters, in terms of getting to the point.

I didn't have any desire I might have had 10 years ago to shoot every single word that I wrote.

You have to be a brat in order to carve out your parameters, and you have to be a monster to anyone who gets in your way. But sometimes it's difficult to know when that's necessary and when you're just being a baby, throwing your rattle from the cage.

No matter how many times you do it, you don't get used to the sadness - for me at least - of coming to the end of a film.

If you figure a way to live without serving a master, any master, then let the rest of us know, will you? For you'd be the first person in the history of the world.