Gee, I wish we had one of them doomsday machines things.

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

From the very beginning, all of my films have divided the critics. Some have thought them wonderful, and others have found very little good to say. But subsequent critical opinion has always resulted in a very remarkable shift to the favorable. In one instance, the same critic who originally rapped the film has several years later put it on an all-time best list. But of course, the lasting and ultimately most important reputation of a film is not based on reviews, but on what, if anything, people say about it over the years, and on how much affection for it they have.

What do you take me for? A fourteen karat sucker?

If Gary Cooper and Henry Fonda had a baby, it would be Matthew Modine.

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

I've never achieved spectacular success with a film. My reputation has grown slowly. I suppose you could say that I'm a successful filmmaker-in that a number of people speak well of me. But none of my films have received unanimously positive reviews, and none have done blockbuster business.