I've seen my own films close to a thousand times in one form or another. When you edit them. When you shoot them. Then you run them over and over again for sound and music. Then you'd go to premiere screenings, and have to do promotional screenings in other cities. I can't watch any of my old films.

There is a thin line between the policeman and the criminal. The best cops are always crossed. The best cops are the ones who are able to think like criminals. But for a quirk of fate, they might have been criminals.

There are many untalented people making millions of dollars in the film business.

In the case of a film like The Exorcist or To Live and Die in L.A., I saw the whole movie in my head before I went to shoot it. I never did storyboards, or anything like that. I had the film in my head.

The studios mostly threw away the negatives of the classic films. They had no interest in their legacy.

Style is something that's extremely important, but it must grow naturally out of who and what you are and what the material calls for. It cannot be superimposed.

I have seen lampoons of my work. And I have really enjoyed them. But I would never do another version of The Exorcist.