I have a number of symptoms that are neurotic and are constricting in the sense that if I had a brilliant idea for a film that had to be shot in Tulsa, OK I would tear it up and throw it away. Anything outside of New York, 'cause I can't exist in a hotel outside of my own home, I have to be in my own home and my own environment. This is a neurotic symptom that is constricting to my work even.

Maybe the poets are right. Maybe love is the only answer.

During the course of the year a number of ideas just come up automatically. I could be walking down the street. Or shaving. An idea will hit me and I'll write it down. Then, when I'm ready to write, I check my little matchbooks and napkins and find that it is good or it's pretty terrible. There are other times when I don't have any ideas and I'll go into a room and close the door and I sit and sweat it out for a day or a month and eventually I come up with [something].

It's easier to direct. If you direct something poorly and re-shoot it the next day, stage it better, make it work better, you have a lot of possibilities. You can edit it in certain ways so that it works, but there's no getting around weaknesses of the script.

I am not afraid of death. I just don't want to be there when it happens.

I think I've gotten technically better over the years but you'd have to be a fool not to. I've made so many movies that by sheer quantity you get better at the technique.

I took a speed-reading course and read War and Peace in twenty minutes. It involves Russia.