I will say that the God concept is at the heart of 2001 but not any traditional, anthromorphic image of God. I don't believe in any of Earth's monotheistic religions, but I do believe that one can construct an intriguing scientific definition of God, once you accept the fact that there are approximately 100 billion stars in our galaxy alone, that each star is a life-giving sun and that there are approximately 100 billion galaxies in just the visible universe.

You're constantly changing man. But the film's not changing. The film stays the same. That's the beautiful aspect of it.

Suppose by chance you do get picked up. What have you done? You shot a horse; that isn't first degree murder; in fact, it isn't even murder; in fact, I don't know what it is.

I haven't come across any recent new ideas in film that strike me as being particularly important and that have to do with form. I think that a preoccupation with originality of form is more or less a fruitless thing. A truly original person with a truly original mind will not be able to function in the old form and will simply do something different. Others had much better think of the form as being some sort of classical tradition and try to work within it.

The great nations have always acted like gangsters, and the small nations like prostitutes.

Sanitised violence in movies has been accepted for years. What seems to upset everybody now is the showing of the consequences of violence.

You sit at the board and suddenly your heart leaps. Your hand trembles to pick up the piece and move it. But what chess teaches you is that you must sit there calmly and think about whether it's really a good idea and whether there are other, better ideas.