What point is there to all the wealth and power that America may have if they can't look after its own?

A script is utterly useless in and of itself; it's only of any worth the minute your actors, your designers, your directors come into being.

Filmmaking is something I have to do. It's not something I particularly want to do.

In terms of popular cinema, 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' is as near perfection as I can think of.

It's not so much that I want to direct but that I have to. When I write something it terrifies me that if I give it to someone else and it doesn't turn out as it could have done, I'd feel as if I'd orphaned my baby.

Nine out of ten delinquents are frustrated actors.

In bringing the subject of religious oppression to a wider audience, I didn't just want to kick the Catholic Church but to poke a finger in the throat of theocracy and to let it be known that people shouldn't tolerate this anymore.