A filmmaker has almost the same freedom as a novelist has when he buys himself some paper.

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.

One does not have to make Frank Capra movies to like people.

I'm happy - at times - making films. I'm certainly unhappy not making films.

It's crazy how you can get yourself in a mess sometimes and not even be able to think about it with any sense and yet not be able to think about anything else.

The destruction of this planet would have no significance on a cosmic scale: to an observer in the Andromeda nebula, the sign of our extinction would be no more than a match flaring for a second in the heavens: and if that match does blaze in the darkness there will be none to mourn a race that used a power that could have lit a beacon in the stars to light its funeral pyre. The choice is ours.

Anyone who has ever been privileged to direct a film also knows that, although it can be like trying to write 'War and Peace' in a bumper car in an amusement park, when you finally get it right, there are not many joys in life that can equal the feeling.