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.

I'm 62 years old. Am I old enough to win a lifetime achievement award? Yes, I am. Thank you very much.

Movies become living organisms that graduate from a filmmaker's sphere of influence and pretty much look back and tell you how they need to be said goodbye to. A movie often turns around and looks at you and says, "Here is who I am, and that's maybe now how you see me, but that's who I've become." And you've got to be open enough to go with that.

I even get inspired by movies that aren't very good, because there's always something good in movies that are collectively thought of as a failure. There's good in everything, I find.

I have always admired him (Bergman), and I wish I could be an equally good filmmaker as he is, but it will never happen. His love for the cinema almost gives me a guilty conscience

I didn't read reviews earlier in my career, but I read them now as I'm older. I read them all.

Even if I'd had a really happy relationship with my father and there was no emotional hiatus for a decade and a half, I probably would still have made some of the same choices for movies that I've made.