People have asked me throughout the years which directors have influenced me. I don't know their names, because I was mostly influenced when I'd see a film and think, "Man, I want to be sure to never do anything like that." So I never learned their names. It wasn't a matter of copying or emulating somebody I admired. It was getting rid of a lot of stuff.

Retirement? You're talking about death, right?

We make too much of the good and too much of the bad.

It's all just one film to me. Just different chapters.

That wasn't an ending. It was just a stopping point.

[The Player is] not a truthful indictment of Hollywood. It's much uglier than I portrayed it, but nobody would've been interested if I'd shown just how sadistic, cruel and self-orientated it is.

I never knew what I wanted, except that it was something I hadn't seen before.