I came into screenwriting from an odd direction, because the first screenplay that I read was and is better as writing than the top one percent of literary novels.

When I was young I was only thinking of writing, and whatever was going on was unreal and comparatively unimportant.

I have no reason as a director to have films go up in versions that I don't like. My only experience of film after ten years is honestly that if a picture doesn't get second-guessed you're looking at four Oscars, and if a picture does get second-guessed, you're not. I've got an advanced degree in that lesson.

In all honesty a gangster picture was the easiest kind of film for me to get made.

I don't trust a lot of popular films because they seem to indicate that people would like to be super-heroes or vampires, and that's the last thing I mean by the useful mirror of art.

I learned my job from English dramatists. Tennessee Williams was no good for me, New York stuff was no good to me.

As a director, you're given a tremendous apparatus to work with, and very great talents are available to you.