I like to do stuff real and practical and in camera, as much as possible. I like old school filmmaking.

[If] you want to learn something about somebody, get into a fistfight. You'll learn more in five minutes than you will in five weeks of conversations. It's basic.

I'm not a film-school guy. I was a high-school dropout. I was on a nuclear submarine. I was an electrician. I was a house painter. So if you get in my face, I'm going to fight you.

Well, as far as film, either you're making a film or you're making videos. Digital capture is always trying to emulate the range and look of film. I believe personally that film has more.

To operate а tank as a crew, it's not about five individuals. It has to be one organism, composed of five people.

I feel like, as a filmmaker, I'm at my strongest when I write the script and when it comes from me, out of whole cloth. My best work has always been self-generated.

You never know what you have until you put it in front of an audience. That's the truth. That's the truth of filmmaking and that's why you make movies, for an audience to, hopefully, enjoy it.

I think a good director can embrace any genre and it's the kind of thing where you always want to do something different. You always want to challenge yourself.

I'm one of those big believers that the movie comes together in the way it's supposed to be and that movies are fated to become what they become.

My mantra is "Better is better".

The most terrifying thing in my life is a blank sheet of paper.

Miracles and bliss are the norm.

No man undertakes a trade he has not learned even the meanest yet every one thinks himself sufficiently qualified for the hardest of all trades - that of government.

Neapolitans are extremely empathetic, whereas the typical northern attitude is more about not showing or sharing your feelings.

The discovery of a wine is of greater moment than the discovery of a constellation. The universe is too full of stars.

It had become boring to write: 'I like Clare Balding'. To say: 'I don't like Clare Balding' is much more newsworthy.

Beware of the guy praying loudest in the amen corner.

I try to do a lot of research beforehand so I know where I want to go with a scene. I try not to get too stressed about it, because I find that's the worst thing

All my stuff is pretty seamless - like now, while I'm touring [Yesterday I Sang The Blues], today I'm going to go in the studio, I'm writing my next one. For me it's continual.

It would be idle to say that we were not, from time to time, aware that a volcano slumbered fitfully beneath us. There were dark sides to the Slavery Question, for master, as for slave.

The only competition worthy of a wise man is with himself.