As I'm getting older, I want to make sure every film I do really counts.

Life isn't black and white. It's a million gray areas, don't you find?

Blade Runner was the godfather of all these fantastic movies that occur today. What's frustrating is that we're short of really great writing and great ideas. Blade Runner was full of them.

It doesn't matter how much faith you have or don't have [in aliens]. I just don't buy the idea that we're alone. There's got to be some form of life out there.

In my view, the only way to see a film remains the way the filmmaker intended: inside a large movie theater with great sound and pristine picture.

I think one of the successes of Gladiator is how we manage to turn on a dime the character from one thing to another where you believe he is one thing and he is something very different.

But Gladiator is one of my favourite adventures because I really loved going into the world. I loved creating the world to the degree where you could almost smell it.

Once you crack the script, everything else follows.

Never be put off by anything because failure teaches you something.

Nowadays, everything's evolved into superheroes and it's boring. If I see one more superhero movie I'm going to shoot myself.

The whole process of making movies and writing screenplays is visceral and intuitive.

And deep down, she felt like maybe she didn't deserve it-that she belonged with the petty thieves and guys who drank Pabst Blue Ribbon for breakfast

Compassion, not castigation is the way to help a person become better.

Sometimes, getting up in the morning and brushing your teeth is the hardest part of the day - it all just hurts.

A tyranny based on ... deception and maintained by terror must inevitably perish from the poison it generates within itself.

Creativity is the gift that keeps on giving.

Profundity easily turns into dullness and astuteness deteriorates into wit. Be guided by natural common sense and it will accommodate great and small.

Tree sitting is a last resort. When you see someone sitting in a tree trying to protect it, you know that every level of our society has failed.

Not necessarily in the beginning, thinking I would have a career in comedy, but I was always interested in making people laugh.

I don't find life unbearably grave. I find it almost intolerably frivolous.

Being smart as a whip includes knowing when not to crack it.