Man isn't a noble savage, he's an ignoble savage. He is irrational, brutal, weak, silly, unable to be objective about anything where his own interests are involved-that about sums it up. I'm interested in the brutal and violent nature of man because it's a true picture of him. And any attempt to create social institutions on a false view of the nature of man is probably doomed to failure.

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

New York was the only really hostile city. Perhaps there is a certain element of the lumpen literati that is so dogmatically atheist and materialist and Earth-bound that it finds the grandeur of space and the myriad mysteries of cosmic intelligence anathema.

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

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.

A film is - or should be - more like music than like fiction. It should be a progression of moods and feelings. The theme, what's behind the emotion, the meaning, all that comes later.

All my life I've always spoiled the things that meant the most to me.