I'm a very feminine man. I like feminine things. I don't go to strip clubs. I don't drink beer. I don't play sports.

Like all art forms, film is a media as powerful as weapons of mass destruction; the only difference is that war destroys and film inspires.

I don't believe that art makes people violent in any way. I don't. But I do believe art can show people how to be violent and that's much more dangerous in a way.

I think that I am a pornographer, meaning that I make movies based on what excites me and what I would like to see.

The artificial world that we create through images will essentially become real.

Cinema is mass media, it is both overtly gross and exciting. It is our great mirror of society.

Creativity is narcissism. Creativity is falling in love with one's self as you create. It's self-indulgent.

In a way, art is a great way to release your love, fantasy, and desires. It's like a fetish. It's a comfortable way of excising a lot of your conscience.

Look at the birth of anything; it's always more violent than anything you could ever imagine.

We live in a beauty-obsessed culture, which on one hand is absolutely fabulous, but on the flip side, is also dangerously extreme.

Understanding one's own power is more interesting than someone being given something powerful.

I have a question for you. When you were a little boy, is this the man you dreamed of becoming?

Christmas is the gentlest, loveliest festival of the revolving year - and yet, for all that, when it speaks, its voice has strong authority.

The habit of doing one's duty drives away fear.

We must generate courage equal to the size of the difficulties we face.

A man must know his limitations.

If everything in the past has value, then there’s no reason for regret, ever.

How does it make sense to remove an option, to tell your enemy before you go into a conflict, that you will not exercise whatever options are necessary in order to achieve victory?

Sociologists are those academic accountants who think that truth can be shaken from an abacus.

I started playing guitar kind of by accident.

I'm about as far from being a flag-waver - you won't find any American flag pins in my drawer - as someone can be.