I think once you've finished a movie you really have to detach from it so that you can come back and watch it as an audience member.

A director shouldn't get in the way of the movie, the story should.

The Exorcist' is amazing because it recognizes that silences can be as powerful as sound effects.

If you're going to succeed, you've got to be like one of those punch-drunk fighters in the old Warner Bros. boxing pictures: too stupid to fall down, you just keep slugging and stay on your feet.

Visual storytelling of one kind or another has been around since cavemen were drawing on the walls.

I think a story should take as long to tell as it is appropriate to that particular story.

Some of us have great original ideas and some of us depend on adaptations.

To me, length is an artificial and arbitrary factor in a film.

Boy, I'd hate to shoot on tape or disc or whatever the hell they're talking about. I love film.

The amazing thing about any movie is not whether it's good, but that it got made at all.

I just tell you what a pleasure it is to get back to the kind of filmmaking I used to be allowed to do.

There is light within your soul. Let it shine.

I had feared that if I opened the floodgates I would drown. But as the waves crashed over me, I was not consumed, I was swept up, washed, my soul blanketed with blessed relief.

I saw that the war could not be prevented. The time had passed.

By the time they had diminished from 50 to 8, the other dwarves began to suspect 'Hungry'.

Man is a free agent; but he is not free if he does not believe it.

My Panasonic typewriter can make graphs. It types in four different colors.

I wish people could get over the hang-up of subtitles, although at the same time, you know, that's kind of why I'm kind of pro dubbing.

There's more violence in one football game than there is in an entire hockey season, and nobody ever talks about that.

If I was a mechanic and someone called me and said their car would not start, I would say, "Hey - maybe a killer is after you!"

Our emphasis is on execution, not winning.