The first must that any director has is to not force his public.

It is hard to do a film that wants to say something because, unfortunately, most everything has been said.

I think politics should be expressed in this way and not in other ways. And not just politics - sentiments, even certain states of being.

My films are often characterized by the lack of women present in them, except for this last one [Once Upon a Time in America].

I didn't want [actress] just to be a woman standing at the window, waving hello and goodbye to men as they came and went in the world that they were struggling through. I wanted her to have a true function.

Probably the greatest writer of westerns himself was Homer. His character were never all good or all bad. They're half and half, these characters, as all human beings are.

Producing films was a distraction for me for which I payed dearly.