Jim Cameron is proof that if you are good, you'll get promoted.

I think anybody who's working in a creative medium is working partially with their conscious mind, partially with their unconscious mind. So, my unconscious mind may be a little more distorted and violent than I am aware of.

As a producer, I probably am a little stronger than most, since I was a director originally.

I love the process of making films and an incidental satisfaction is the fact that most of them made money.

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.

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.

I've never made the film I wanted to make. No matter what happens, it never turns out exactly as I hoped.