I'd really been interested in opera when I was about 16, and I really like staging them.

Everyone has seen photographs of Mexicans wearing those big sombreros. When you come to Mexico, the astonishing thing is, nobody wears these hats at all.

When I was 24 I went to Nigeria and it was such a culture shock, growing up in Australia and suddenly being the only white man in this unit full of black men.

When the music and the characters are flawlessly synchronized, the opera develops an emotional force that movies and plays cannot match.

In Australia, they set up a special fund to kick films off. It was quite an enlightened sort of move. You could go to this government bureau with scripts and and get finance for films.

There were movies that always made me want to be a director. You see brilliant scenes and the way the emotions were handled. I thought, I'd really like to do that.

With a film, I do my best to understand the author's intentions and try to bring the characters to life.

Film is shot in fragments, and the same moments can be shot again and again until the director is satisfied.

The music of the most popular operas is so highly esteemed, it can stand endless revivals.

It's not enough to hit the notes. There is no point in the singers just standing there and sounding wonderful if they're not connecting with the characters they are portraying.

On stage, the audience watches from a fixed viewpoint and the director cannot retake something he doesn't like. It has to work straight through.

The harder I work, the luckier I get.

Whenever your kids are out of control, you can take comfort from the thought that even God's omnipotence did not extend to His kids.

My sentiments for the American cause, from the Stamp Act downward, have never changed... I am still of opinion that it is the cause of liberty and of human nature.

Will I get along with [Vladimir Putin]? I have no idea.

I think there are times when you walk onto a set you can potentially be either intimidated or distracted by what's going on around you.

Love leads us to ourselves - this is the mystery of love.

Knowledge does not come to us in details, but in flashes of light from heaven.

The older you get, the easier it is to shoot your age.

They don't make red noses to fit black people. I have a wide nose like a Volkswagen and I have never had a red nose that fitted me.

I’m not, like, that smart.