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

There is a great streak of violence in every human being. If it is not channeled and understood, it will break out in war or in madness.

I created 'The Westerner' because of anger - anger at never-miss sheriffs, always-right marshalls, whitewashed gunfighters ... anger at TV's quick-draw tin gods who stand behind a tin star or ten cents' worth of righteous anger and justify their skill and slaughter with a self-conscious grin or a minute's worth of bad philosophy.

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

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

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.

I regard everything with irony, including the face I see in the mirror when I wake up in the morning.