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.

Charging a man with murder in this place was like handing out speeding tickets at the Indy 500.

Everybody's a filmmaker today.

I find that screenwriting is at best kind of a hackwork in some ways.

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

I may not be the strongest guy or the most well armed, but you can put me in a room with a pencil and a piece of paper and I can kill anybody.

The people that really pass judgment on you really have nothing to do with what you do, usually.

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

Most artists think they're frauds anyway.

I mean, the old film critics just excoriated me.

I suppose when I started out I would have liked to have been the darling of critics or something, but everybody wants to be loved and admired.

The greatest part of a writer's time is spent in reading in order to write. A man will turn over half a library to make a book.

The experience of being depressed and emerging from depression made me understand the idea of a soul. I felt that the language in which one could best acknowledge that drew from faith.

One has to taste an experience for oneself and find out if the thing is genuine or helpful. Then, before discarding something, one has to go further, so that one gets firsthand experience.

Walking on rocks, hurts. Walking on glass, cuts. Walking on hot coals, burns. Walking on someones heart, kills.

I have two grandchildren.

Crowds are somewhat like the sphinx of ancient fable: It is necessary to arrive at a solution of the problems offered by their psychology or to resign ourselves to being devoured by them.

If America puts the enmity aside, if it initiates good will, and if it compensates for the past, the future situation between the United States and Iran will change.

There are moments when very little truth would be enough to shape opinion. One might be hated at extremely low cost.

Envy has been, is, and shall be, the destruction of many. What is there, that Envy hath not defamed, or Malice left undefiled? Truly, no good thing.