Unfortunately, every time I have somebody play an instrument, it's always like, they don't know how to do it.

What the internet has done is destroy film criticism. I would never have guessed that the profession of film criticism would be going the way of the dodo bird.

You can do all these kinds of things that are up close and personal, but you really have to bring your strength, and really - you have to really be committed to actually strangle the life out of somebody, to crush their larynx and just squeeze every drop of life out of them.

Everything I learned as an actor, I have basically applied to writing.

I want to top expectations. I want to blow you away.

There's another aspect about the Seventies. Blazing Saddles, as wonderful as it was, sort of hurt the Western. It made such fun of them, that you almost couldn't take them seriously from that point on. That's why only Westerns that had the stink of Watergate or Vietnam could be taken seriously. There were so few Westerns made since then, from the Eighties on, that the few directors who did were so pleased with themselves and so happy to have the opportunity that they got lost in visuals, they got lost in the vistas and the pretty scenery.

If I'm doing my job right, then I'm not writing the dialogue; the characters are saying the dialogue, and I'm just jotting it down.