I wanted to write and direct movies and not be forced to adapt them from a bestselling book.

I think cinema, movies, and magic have always been closely associated. The very earliest people who made film were magicians.

When I was about 9, I had polio, and people were very frightened for their children, so you tended to be isolated. I was paralyzed for a while, so I watched television.

An essential element of any art is risk. If you don't take a risk then how are you going to make something really beautiful, that hasn't been seen before?

I used to love going into local hardware stores, to look at little things they made locally. Nowadays it's harder, though you can still do it in Vietnam.

I had an older brother who was very interested in literature, so I had an early exposure to literature, and and theater. My father sometimes would work in musical comedies.

There's nothing creative about living within your means.

Anything you build on a large scale or with intense passion invites chaos.

We were raised in an Italian-American household, although we didn't speak Italian in the house. We were very proud of being Italian, and had Italian music, ate Italian food.

You don't have to specialize - do everything that you love and then, at some time, the future will come together for you in some form.

If the movie works, nobody notices the mistakes... If the movie doesn't work, the only thing people notice are mistakes.

For your next act, please don't pull any rabbits out of my... well, hat."....He licked playfully at her mouth. "And ya can't call my manhood 'rabbit'.

I go where I want to go, I do what I want to do, and I am beholden to no one.

I do like the way people behave toward me and Theresa when we’re together-everyone’s voice changes to music, and we get all sorts of smiles.

The pitfall of the feminist is the belief that the interests of men and women can ever be severed; that what brings sufferings to the one can leave the other unscathed.

Every week Republicans are excited about a new candidate because the one they liked last week turned out to be a moron.

Theater is far superior to film in poetry, in abstract poetry.

It ain't how long you know somebody that means anything. It's what that person mean to you in your heart.

Start out with an ideal and end up with a deal.

Arabs respect only the language of force.

The dark has to be contained in the light or the light will be contained in the dark.