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

I'm a slave to my imagination in terms of making narrative films.

How could we possibly appreciate the Mona Lisa if Leonardo had written at the bottom of the canvas: 'The lady is smiling because she is hiding a secret from her lover.' This would shackle the viewer to reality, and I don't want this to happen to 2001.

Don't get obsessed with not liking a movie.

The world's religions, for all their parochialism, did supply a kind of consolation for this great ache. This shattering recognition of our mortality is at the root of far more mental illness than I suspect even psychiatrists are aware.

My period as a young teenager when you really listen to music so you can get understand a little bit more about what the music is was, say, 1965 to 1968. I was just lucky to be in those times.

I do not always know what I want, but I do know what I don't want.