"Hollywood has always been a cage... a cage to catch our dreams."

"I don't try to guess what a million people will like. It's hard enough to know what I like."

"What to do when inspiration doesn't come; be careful not to spook, get the wind up, force things into position. You must wait around until the idea comes."

"I prefer to think that God is not dead, just drunk."

"It's not color, it's like pouring 40 tablespoons of sugar water over a roast."

"The directing of a picture involves coming out of your individual loneliness and taking a controlling part in putting together a small world. A picture is made. You put a frame around it and move on. And one day you die. That is all there is to it."

"After all, crime is only a left-handed form of human endeavor."

"You walk through a series of arches, so to speak, and then, presently, at the end of a corridor, a door opens and you see backward through time, and you feel the flow of time, and realize you are only part of a great nameless procession."