I'm more prone to anarchy than I am to control - even though I'm a film director.

The English are such a frightened, nervous, insecure group of people - they no longer rule the world!

I wasn't creative or theatrical. I was just doing everything. I was head cheerleader, valedictorian - it was ridiculous!

Invariably, what I'm trying to do is more ambitious than the budget, but we manage to do it somehow.

I don't think you ever learn just one thing. At some point you start unlearning things. I have been working hard to unlearn everything I know.

I find Hollywood gives these pat stories, and they're reassuring stories, and I don't really want to give people that. Hollywood does all that work. I'm offering, sometimes, an alternative to that. The answers aren't black-and-white. There may not even be answers in certain instances. The ground is not necessarily solid, either. So you've got to keep awake the whole time, even after the movie is over.

John Cleese was with a group called Cambridge Circus, who had come to New York, and we became friends. Years later that produced a certain team effort.