What would an ocean be without a monster lurking in the dark? It would be like sleep without dreams.

I think a state should not be in the capacity of killing anyone with the exception of warfare.

You are confronted with abysses of time that are, in a way, unfathomable. You see a painting in charcoal of raindeer and it was left unfinished and somebody else finished it. But through radio carbon dating we know that the next one completed the painting 5,000 years later. You're just blown away by the notion of passage of time. We have no relationship to that kind of depth of time.

I work very fast and steadily, and I don't hardly ever notice that I'm working. It feels like just breathing or walking when I do films.

I'm not a one-trick horse.

When we speak about trespassing, we speak about artistic trespassing. You have to be prudent and have common sense and a sense of responsibility when you're trespassing. I think you haven't seen a film on volcanoes like that before. It's not National Geographic. It is wildly imaginative and very poetic and has a sense of awe that you normally do not see in films.

If you’re purely after facts, please buy yourself the phone directory of Manhattan. It has four million times correct facts. But it doesn’t illuminate.