I just love biography, and I'm fascinated by people who have shifted our destinies or our points of view.

I think it is obscene that we should believe that we are entitled to end somebody's life, no matter what that person has supposedly done or not done.

I believe we need heroes...we need certain people who we can measure our own shortcomings by.

I passionately believe in heroes, but I think the world has changed its criteria in determining who it describes as a hero.

There's nothing more important in making movies than the screenplay.

I don't blame people for their mistakes, but I do ask that they pay for them.

I am passionately opposed to capital punishment, and I have been all my life.

I want to be remembered as a storyteller.

Art is not an elitist gift for a few select people. Art is for everyone.

What I am sad about is that there is now, in America, no equivalent to the art circuit.

I think Tom Paine is one of the greatest men that's ever lived.

A god of kindness would be charitable to all. Your god of wrath and punishment is but a monstrous phantasy.

This is so nice, it must be illegal.

Bullies are ultimately unhappy people who try to inflict pain and hate on others and are to be pitied. Once you realize that, their words can no longer hurt you.

I'm more likely to lose my temper on a film set than almost anywhere. Often the level of idiocy is so exalted that it's impossible to comprehend.

Time is the tiger that devours me, but I am that tiger.

You and you alone are the only person that can live the life that writes the story that you were meant to tell. And the world needs your story because the world needs your voice.

No increase in the welfare of the member of society can result from the availability of an additional quantity of money.

There are terrible living conditions and unhappiness, (even) where everybody is Italian.

To me, recordings are little fourth-dimension artifacts, because they already are representatives of past, present, and future, just inherently in their existence.