I was a very earnest, hard working boy at school, but my parents were distressed because I was always bottom of the class. But I wasn't dilatory, I worked like crazy.

Life isn't black and white. It's a million gray areas, don't you find?

Blade Runner was the godfather of all these fantastic movies that occur today. What's frustrating is that we're short of really great writing and great ideas. Blade Runner was full of them.

It doesn't matter how much faith you have or don't have [in aliens]. I just don't buy the idea that we're alone. There's got to be some form of life out there.

In my view, the only way to see a film remains the way the filmmaker intended: inside a large movie theater with great sound and pristine picture.

I think one of the successes of Gladiator is how we manage to turn on a dime the character from one thing to another where you believe he is one thing and he is something very different.

But Gladiator is one of my favourite adventures because I really loved going into the world. I loved creating the world to the degree where you could almost smell it.

Once you crack the script, everything else follows.

Never be put off by anything because failure teaches you something.

Nowadays, everything's evolved into superheroes and it's boring. If I see one more superhero movie I'm going to shoot myself.

The whole process of making movies and writing screenplays is visceral and intuitive.

It's a strange idea people have that thinking makes one intelligent.

We can accomplish great things by God’s grace.

...spiritual or emotional pain doesn't become a memory so much as a bruise ...

Happiness is feeling confident that the god of this universe is pleased with the things you say and do.

A man who as a physical being is always turned toward the outside, thinking that his happiness lies outside him, finally turns inward and discovers that the source is within him.

To those who had ordered them to death, one of them said: “We die because the people are asleep and you will die because the people will awaken.”

Art goes on in your head. If you said something interesting, that might be a title for a work of art and I'd write it down.

The older I get the more I trust in the law according to which the rose and the lily bloom.

None of my friends smoke. I've never smoked a cigarette in my life.

The movie that made me want to make movies was "Blue Velvet."