All of my films deal with the same thing: striving, socially and culturally, to stay alive.

I have never made a movie that's attracted a 14-year-old boy.

[M*A*S*H] didn't get released by FOX, it escaped.

I've never had a big hit movie. "MASH" was probably the biggest. I don't make those kind of films, and I never have. I wish each one of them would just do billions of dollars worth of ticket sales, but they never do and they never will.

The artist and the multitude are natural enemies. They always will be, both ways. The artist is an enemy of the multitude, and the multitude is the enemy of the artist. And when the disguise comes off and they're both standing facing one another, they're just there at odds end.

I am not an expert. That is someone else's job. If I were expert, the approach would be all wrong. It would be from the inside. I am a blunderer. I usually don't know what I am going into at the start. I go into the fog and trust something will be there.

Most of my films I call arena films. I deal with a confined area -- an arena -- and I try to cover every aspect of it.