I was a very earnest, hard working boy at school, but my parents were distressed because I was always bottom of the class. But I wasn't dilatory, I worked like crazy.

The time it would take me to write a screenplay it would take me the time to make two films. I would rather make the movies and I'm a better moviemaker than I a would be writer.

I don't ever blink, honestly.

There's nothing really original. Alien was a B-movie. Five directors passed on it before me. Because I was into Heavy Metal, I read it, and thought, "Wow, I want to do this." I was on a plane to Hollywood in 22 hours. It was a B-movie and was elevated to an A-plus movie by sheer good taste.

There's a little thing on your shoulder called intuition and it whispers in your ear. Everyone has that, there is a voice telling you to do something. Most people ignore it - but you must listen to it. I do it every day, all day.

What you do, is you gradually become more and more experienced, and more and more realistic about dramatic tolerance, i.e. about how long the play should be.

Blade Runner was the godfather of all these fantastic movies that occur today. What's frustrating is that we're short of really great writing and great ideas. Blade Runner was full of them.