As soon as digital editing came about, I immediately made the switch to digital.

I got a chance to work with Mel Brooks on two of his films: Silent Movie and High Anxiety.

First of all, just to get Diner made would have been an achievement in that I got a chance to direct.

There's no downside to having too much experience.

You don't always have to have the ending, but you want to have a satisfactory conclusion.

A lot of time mistakes are very interesting - you look for the behaviour that's not the one you expect.

I think certain movies work and that is part of the magic of it all. We can't truly define why something succeeds.

I got involved with an acting school and studied for a couple years. They used to have improv exercises that you would work on and you would do improvs.

When I began to think about the head of the family, the storyteller, the rise of television which became the new storyteller, the break-up of the American family as an idea and then Avalon came.

Craig Nelson who is an actor and is in a show called Coach in the United States. We began to do some improvisational stuff and we used to get laughs and things.

Some actors are supposed to be very difficult, but I've not found that to be the situation.

You have to lose something to gain anything.

It's similar to the way you feel cuddling an infant or a kitten, when you want to squeeze it so hard you'd kill it...

You're born. You suffer. You die. Fortunately, there's a loophole.

there is this malign curse laid on dipsomaniacs. That they must absolutely have a drink: in order to feel strong enough to stop drinking.

People tease me about knowing somehow that Obama would put Clinton into the cabinet, and everybody would talk about a team of rivals.

Pick a theme and work it to exhaustion... the subject must be something you truly love or truly hate.

This, indeed, is one of the eternal paradoxes of both life and literature-that without passion little gets done; yet, without control of that passion, its effects are largely ill or null.

Gold cometh gladly and in increasing quantity to any man who will put by not less than one-tenth of his earnings to create an estate for his future and that of his family.

I think bullfights are for men who aren't very brave and wish they were.

I'd hate to be a songwriter starting a career today.