Part of me is drawn to the nature of sadness because I think life is sad, and sadness is not something that should be avoided or denied. It's a fact of life, like contradictions are.

I was never a good student. I had to be dragged into kindergarten. It was hard to sit and listen to somebody talk. I wanted to be out, educated by experience and adventure, and I didn't know how to express that.

...if our humanity - our soul as a society - is overtaken by the materiel and cosmetic, there will be no hope of peace.

Right now I am working on something that's pretty important to me. It has to do with my own history in politics. I'd done All the President's Men, and the history of how that came about is a story unto itself. It began with The Candidate. No one knows about that connection. I was on a train, and I was promoting The Candidate going from Jacksonville, Florida, down to Miami to duplicate what candidates in 1972 did.

I think independent filmmakers, documentary filmmakers - they are journalists.

You work like hell to get yourself ahead in the business. You could go anywhere before, and suddenly you can't go anywhere. It's like being a cartoon character.

When I was a kid I was not a good student. I went to the University of Colarado, my grades were poor. I was asked to leave after a year. What I really wanted to do was to be an artist.