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

You know, it's one thing about intellectuals, they prove that you can be absolutely brilliant and have no idea what's going on.

You look up after many years and you find that a film has become a classic because it's meaningful to people and alive, decade after decade.

If man were immortal, do you realize what his meat bills would be?

I was raised in the Jewish tradition, taught never to marry a Gentile woman, shave on a Saturday night and, most especially, never to shave a Gentile woman on a Saturday night.

I'm a comedian. I make comic films and there are certain ideas that occur to me that are comic, with heavy, serious undertones. There are some ideas that are more frivolous to me. The next idea that could occur to me could be comedy about death and famine or something.

People say that death is a part of life and there must be something to it, but I just see it as bad news and I want everybody to stop sugarcoating it.