If I'm at home on my own and the writing isn't going well, I clean my house. And there have been times in the past few years when my house has looked really clean.

In terms of popular cinema, 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' is as near perfection as I can think of.

The films that I really enjoy now are films that are made by, for wont of a better word, mavericks.

There are some people who walk into a room and they oxygenate it, by their very being there's fresh air. Then there are those who come in with the smell of death and they suck the life out.

Filmmaking is something I have to do. It's not something I particularly want to do.

You have to just go with your imagination, where your instinct takes you.

I know virtually no one of my age who can remember a hug, or a smile from their father, or a 'Let's go play football.'

A script is utterly useless in and of itself; it's only of any worth the minute your actors, your designers, your directors come into being.

Life is much weirder than fiction; nothing's more absurd.

I find the world more absurd now than I did when I was a kid.

I hate it when something is set in 1967 and every piece of furniture was made in 1967. No! If it's set in 1967, people have furniture given to them by their grandmother, which she bought in 1932!

Courage is the will to act in the face of any fear.

I believe that if children fall in love with wildlife they will grow up wanting to protect it.

Faith is trusting yourself to believe in uncertainties.

In America, you complain about job losses because of China, but here, we carry all of the environmental costs.

The hype man's job is to get everybody out of their seats and on the dance floor to have a good time.

The school of life embodies a compulsory education that no man escapes.

What do people want? Well, you really can’t talk about wants until you talk about needs.

I always wanted to sing, as a child.

Shall we go on conferring our Civilization upon the peoples that sit in darkness, or shall we give those poor things a rest?

Successful innovation has consistently proved to be fluid and flexible, fast and furious - that is, passionate.