I'm not going to shoot seven days a week. I think it's counterproductive. I think you're going to have people stumbling around after a couple of weeks.

I look for the ability to work. Directing is hard work. They don't teach you that in film school. Critics are not aware of it, but it is hard, physical work.

Somebody said, 'Roger doesn't know how to spend money.' And I thought, 'I don't spend money because I don't have it!' If I had it, I could spend money! That's about the only time I was told that!

Martin Scorsese was one of the few who had not been an assistant. Most of the guys had been an assistant and worked their way up. But I had seen an underground picture he had made in New York, a black-and-white film. I had done a picture for American International, about a Southern woman bandit, the Ma Barker story, and it was very successful, and I had left to start my own company, and they wanted me to make another one.

In order to create art today, you have to compromise your art somewhat and be a businessman.

Somebody who moved up very fast was Jim Cameron, who was a young guy out of - I think he came from Arizona, from some community college there, and he was building model spaceships, on a picture called Battle Beyond the Stars.

One of the worst things you can do is have a limited budget and try to do some big looking film. That's when you end up with very bad work.