I deliberately, in a way, went for something that was a huge challenge and was a big period film. I was excited about the canvas on which I could tell the story as much as the story itself.

Listen, you make a big movie, you're going into the Coliseum, and people are going to give you the thumbs up or the thumbs down. And that's part of the game. It's part of the fun as well.

When I drive through a field, I want to see green grass sometimes, and I don't want to see black and white.

Confidence is essential, but ego is not.

You've got to work. You've got to want an audience to sit forward in their chairs sometimes, rather than sit back and be bombarded with images.

Actors get pigeonholed very quickly, particularly movie actors. In the theater, one is more used to casting people against type and trusting that their talent and skill will get them through.

Truly great actors carry their characters in silence with them. They communicate without words the relationships that predate the movie.

I think movies are a director's medium in the end. Theater is the actor's medium. Theater is fast, and enjoyable, and truly rewarding. I believe in great live performance.

You think about taking audiences on a journey.

You've got to believe as a filmmaker that if a movie's good enough, it's going to survive; and if it's not, well, it won't.

This is the first time in 10 years I don't know what I'm doing next and I'm rather enjoying it. Soon I'll be climbing the walls no doubt, but right now, it's not clear, I'm just enjoying the freedom.

I consider it an extremely dangerous doctrine, because the more likely we are to assume that the solution comes from the outside, the less likely we are to solve our problems ourselves.

Make your life a prayer. Live your mediation.

The nine Greek Muses, awakened again for this generation of man and meant to inspire mankind forward in the sciences and the arts.

Everyone is good at heart. We all do things with the greatest of intentions and most of the time we do it for selfish reasons. Myself included.

If you suffer thank God! It is a sure sign that you are alive.

What can I do if everyone from the president to a junior bureaucrat is dying to convict me. If I am such a criminal, what was I doing outside jail before my marriage to Benazir?

There hasn't been a more effeminate Jew in the closet since Anne Frank.

This world is nothing. An illusion. Death is the release.

It has become increasingly clear to me that the White House is not interested in good-faith negotiations.

Round the world and home again, that's the sailor's way!