The essence of what it is to be American is the deep moral urge to be free, to freely express yourself and have the right to do so, and to look at all people as equals.

Before I go off and direct a movie, I always look at four films. They tend to be The Seven Samurai, Lawrence Of Arabia, It's A Wonderful Life and The Searchers.

I'm not really interested in making money. That's always come as the result of success, but it's not been my goal.

Everybody loves a winner, but nobody loves a winner.

It's still a mystery to me, but even though my mother was like an older sister to me, I kind of put her up on a pedestal.

The public has an appetite for anything about imagination - anything that is as far away from reality as is creatively possible.

One of the gratuities about being a director is that you can volunteer yourself out of difficult details.