The western is a universal frame within which it's possible to comment on today.

The whole underside of our society has always been violence and still is. Churches, laws - everybody seems to think that man is a noble savage. But he's only an animal. A meat-eating, talking animal. Recognize it. He also has grace and love and beauty. But don't say to me we're not violent.

I want to be able to make westerns like Akira Kurosawa makes westerns.

I made a film where nobody got shot and nobody went to see it.

I'm a student of violence because I'm a student of the human heart.

Well, killing a man isn't clean and quick and simple. It's bloody and awful. And maybe if enough people come to realize that shooting somebody isn't just fun and games, maybe we'll get somewhere.

The end of a picture is always an end of a life.