"I felt that the Star Wars series became very pretentious as time went on. Just heavy and leaden."

"There is a certain kind of respect for authenticity today that there wasn't back in the days when they did 'Cleopatra,' where everything looked like a giant motel. People want to have it be authentic in the look, and authentic in the way people behave."

"I've always had trouble with authority."

"'m a general, I do something. I go out and fight wars and win them."

"You never know when you're going to be considered un-hip... The people that really pass judgment on you really have nothing to do with what you do, usually."

"Egotism is not a good quality. It's not something to be admired or even tolerated. It wouldn't be tolerated in a field commander and it shouldn't be tolerated in a movie director."

"Matter of fact, the style that people use today, I invented in a way."

"Also, they don't understand - writing is language. The use of language. The language to create image, the language to create drama. It requires a skill of learning how to use language."

"The filmmakers always have a great level of control."

"Most of the good executives do pretty well. Because to be a good executive you have to be strong, and you have to have a simple attribute that people have forgotten about - courage."

"Everybody's a filmmaker today."

"I mean, the old film critics just excoriated me."

"A lot of directors don't know what they want to do. Every director I've seen that was a good director that I've admired knew exactly what he wanted to do. They didn't sit there and think about it."

"Films are always pretentious. There's nothing more pretentious than a filmmaker."

"Writing requires a great deal of skill, just like painting does. People don't want to learn those skills."

"Most artists think they're frauds anyway."

"I also thought of myself as the Sonny Barger of the film industry."

"You know, I find it very strange when movies that I made that were just excoriated - I mean that I was just vilified for - are now looked at as classics."

"Yeah, I think that's it... It's like Jesse James. He became really popular because he lasted so long. You know, there is some degree of truth to the fact that time will dignify anything, too."

"No, you're either born a writer, a storyteller, or you're not."

"I've always been able to survive by writing, though."

"I became a loner. I became a mountain man. A lot of those things are very good qualities and they help you do your work, help you be singular and keep the artistic integrity of your work intact, but they don't make it very easy to live your life."