Capital punishment would be more effective as a preventive measure if it were administered prior to the crime.

The curtain rises on a vast primitive wasteland, not unlike certain parts of New jersey.

I don't rely on anybody except my own judgment. I don't get much input. I don't know if that's helped me or if I would be better off if I did rely on someone.

Life is horrible, but it is not relentlessly black from wire to wire. You can sit down and hear a Mozart symphony, or you can watch the Marx Brothers, and this will give you a pleasant escape for a while. And that is about the best that you can do.

Sex and death. Two things that come but once in my lifetime, but at least after death you're not nauseous.

Visually I've always liked the 20s 30s for film. I do these because I like the music. I like the clothes. I like the way the women and the guys look. There are soldiers and sailors and gangsters with the machine guns in their violin cases. It's a very colorful era of New York, full of great theater and great nightclubs and great jazz.

My films are therapy for my debilitating depression. In institutions people weave baskets. I make films.