I did 'Deathly Hallows' so my kids could get on the 'Harry Potter' set. They met Daniel Radcliffe, who was a darling and couldn't have been nicer to them so I'm a hero right now.

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.

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

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!

The direction in which education starts a man will determine his future life

The ever-present macabre, a universal dance, You cannot hide, whether you wield crossbow or lance. Like the bones of the house in which you dwell, Death will come, to drag your soul to hell.

You can always tell who a writer subconsciously/consciously dislikes/hates/discriminates against in real life based on who they don't write about more than who they do.

That, sir, depends on whether I embrace your mistress or your politics.

I have never been able to discover anything disgraceful in being a colored man. But I have often found it inconvenient - in America.

I want to do a movie on sports - like a movie on a racer or a marathon runner - as I feel I'll fit that bill perfectly.

It so happens that the world is undergoing a transformation to which no change that has yet occurred can be compared, either in scope or in rapidity.

Citizenship consists in the service of the country.

If I want to understand the laws of physics I have to first believe what I read about physics. I have to have faith in what I read.

You had better run from me. My words are fire.