From Ennio [Morricone] I ask for themes that clothe my characters easily. He's never read a script of mine to compose the music, because many times he's composed the music before the script is ever written.

I've seen films that have made as much as $100, $200 million, but they're not films. They're images. They're flashes. They're many beautiful images, lots of things to look at. They capture you. But it's not a film. It's not something that involves you in a story. They go to cinema now to be blown away by the effects.

Where life had no value, death, sometimes, had its price. That is why the bounty killers appeared.

I've shot films in Africa. I've shot in America - English is not my language.

When you manage to express something with a look and the music instead of saying it with words or having the character speak, I think it's a more complete work.

I admit that some of my ideas may have turned out to be pessimistic in nature.

I had never thought of making a western even as I was making it.