Actually, I began to think that maybe there is a god, after all. Or maybe its a different one. The old one got fired.

It's hard for me to worry about the studios losing money. I'm not very sympathetic to their money problems, because they certainly haven't been sympathetic to mine.

I think it's worse for actors, though, because people have to choose you. As a director, I get to choose the actors, but most of the time, actors have to be chosen in order to work.

Every few years when it's been another five years that have passed and I haven't made a film and the depression starts taking over totally, I allow myself to do a commercial. And then I feel really dirty and get to work promptly.

When it came to slaughtering sacred cows with such crude yet perfect musical precision, there was no one better than Frank. I wonder what songs he's teaching the angels right now? Good luck God! You've got your hands full this time.

The success of the Hollywood marketing machine is to limit what we see. Not just to limit what we can see, but also to limit our expectations - to limit what we want to see.

What I want to do is make films that astonish people, that astound people, and I hope you want to do that too. It's easy to make money. It's easy to make films like everybody else. But to make films that explode like grenades in people's heads and leave shrapnel for the rest of their lives is a very important thing. That's what the great filmmakers did for me. I've got images from Fellini, from Bergman, from Kurowsawa, from Bunuel, all stuck in my brain.