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

One man writes a novel. One man writes a symphony. It is essential that one man make a film.

I've never laid a cane on the back of a lord before, but if you force me to I shall speedily become used to the practice.

The most terrifying fact about the universe is not that it is hostile but that it is indifferent, but if we can come to terms with this indifference, then our existence as a species can have genuine meaning. However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light.

The reality of the final moment, just before shooting [the scene], is so powerful that all previous analysis must yield before the impressions you receive under these circumstances, and unless you use this feedback to your positive advantage, unless you adjust to it, adapt to it and accept the sometimes terrifying weaknesses it can expose, you can never realize the most out of your film.

Perhaps it sounds ridiculous, but the best thing that young filmmakers should do is to get hold of a camera and some film and make a movie of any kind at all.

The destruction of this planet would have no significance on a cosmic scale.