Years ago I was on television having a discussion with Billy Graham about atheism. He was saying, even if you're right and I'm wrong, and there's nothing after, I will have had a better life than you, because I do believe there was something. And I couldn't argue with that, even though I wanted to.

If you're not failing, you're not trying anything.

I should go to Paris and jump off of the Eiffel Tower. If I took the Concorde, I could be dead three hours earlier.

There are worse things than death. Many of them playing at a theater near you.

Human existence is a brutal experience to me... it's a brutal, meaningless experience - an agonizing, meaningless experience with some oases, delight, some charm and peace, but these are just small oases. Overall, it is a brutal, terrible experience, and so it salvation is what can you do to alleviate the agony of the human condition, the human predicament? That is what interests me the most.

When the Academy called, I panicked. I thought they might want their Oscars back and the pawn shop has been out of business for a while.

I'm really impotent against the overwhelming bleakness of the universe and the only thing I can do is my little gift [filmmaking] and do it the best I can, [...] which is cold comfort.