None of the arts are any good unless you really are great at them.

My films are misinterpreted all the time. I don't mind that. Everybody's films are misinterpreted. But there's no malice or stupidity in the people that misinterpret them. You know what you do, but someone else sees it, and they want to talk about it or write about it, and so they misinterpret them.

Me sitting down for dinner with Ingmar Bergman felt like a house painter sitting down with Picasso.

I never start editing a film until it's completely shot; I don't edit along the way, ever. When it's finished I come in here [screening room] and we start with reel one, scene one and start editing shot by shot by shot until we're finished.

Just don't take any class where you have to read BEOWULF.

I think there is too much wrong with the world to ever get too relaxed and happy. The more natural state, and the better one, I think, is one of some anxiety and tension over man's plight in this mysterious universe.

Relationships are really what interest me the most. And I think, in the end, they interest most people the most. Even when you read Tolstoy or something, basically they're about man and woman relationships.