Critical opinion on my films has always been salvaged by what I would call subsequent critical opinion.

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.

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

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

I didn't want murder. It's all gone wrong.

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.

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.