Filmmaking is something I have to do. It's not something I particularly want to do.

In terms of popular cinema, 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' is as near perfection as I can think of.

The films that I really enjoy now are films that are made by, for wont of a better word, mavericks.

There are some people who walk into a room and they oxygenate it, by their very being there's fresh air. Then there are those who come in with the smell of death and they suck the life out.

You have to just go with your imagination, where your instinct takes you.

I know virtually no one of my age who can remember a hug, or a smile from their father, or a 'Let's go play football.'

A script is utterly useless in and of itself; it's only of any worth the minute your actors, your designers, your directors come into being.

Life is much weirder than fiction; nothing's more absurd.

I find the world more absurd now than I did when I was a kid.

I hate it when something is set in 1967 and every piece of furniture was made in 1967. No! If it's set in 1967, people have furniture given to them by their grandmother, which she bought in 1932!

When things are really painful, I turn it into comedy.

And I'm suppose to sit by while you date boys and fall in love with someone else, get married...?" His voice tightened. "And meanwhile, I'll die a little bit more every day, watching.

We are too prone to engrave our trials in marble and write our blessings in sand.

When black America is on the move, America is on the move.

Loneliness had taught Harriet that there was always someone who understood - it was just so often that they were dead, and in a book.

Even in this room full of proud Manhattan Democrats. I can't shake that feeling that some people here are pulling for me ... I'm delighted to see you here tonight, Hillary.

A lot of people don't give much thought to what they believe, and it's easy for them to hold what often are two conflicting ideas in their head at the same time.

You don't go to the people that are just like you. You go to the people that you have to earn their credit.

Beware of what you do best; its bound to be a trap.

Courage is ignoring your fear.

If I had my personal view, perhaps that might take hold. In fact, I don't want to see another dog or cat born.