If you see someone lying out knives and forks consistently, but then one day those knives and forks become weapons you're not sure if he does that as a warrior, that's just his thing.

Being a kid growing up with Kurosawa films and watching Sergio Leone movies just made me love what it could do to you, and how it could influence you - make you dream.

Cinema Paradiso, because it reminds me of why I make movies, the magic of movies, the romance of movies.

It's a dumb question, because I don't look at things as a black director, just as a director, so ask me as a director first and we can segue into the colour thing later.

Some men don't gel when it comes to work - you have different work ethics, different opinions, different points of views, different methods of filmmaking - and we didn't gel.

So it's hard to be an artist and be true to the reality of the world you want to create and also make it entertaining and successful financially.

I just think you can't shut your life off to just, you know, one thing. You gotta be open-minded. Explore things. Feed your artist.

I like the platform to show your art and everything that goes along with that. To show your voice and hopefully find films that are more politically driven, films that maybe inspire.

If I'm going to see my mom, I'm going to church!

We're very good friends, we have a very honest relationship. He keeps me honest, I keep him honest. He's an incredible actor and when you have an actor like Denzel action becomes drama.

I became a director just for the love of movies, because of the power of cinema.

God’s grace abounded much more in times of difficulty.

The most basic of all human needs is the need to understand and be understood. The best way to understand people is to listen to them.

It stands to the everlasting credit of science that by acting on the human mind it has overcome man's insecurity before himself and before nature.

Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground.

I still feel like I'm 19. We're old now!

A display connected to a digital computer gives us a chance to gain familiarity with concepts not realizable in the physical world. It is a looking glass into a mathematical wonderland.

The institution of marriage is just formalizing an emotion, an attempt to make it seem permanent. The emotion will last or it won't last; nothing can guarantee it.

I've noticed a surge when I go out somewhere, or if I'm doing stand-up.

One should never underestimate the power of books.

I could have made a small film and kept all the money from 'Life is Beautiful'. Instead, I spent more money than I had on 'Pinocchio', a very risky film.