It's interesting to help someone find their vocabulary. There would not have been a De Niro without a Scorsese.

You can take a handful of dollars, a good story, and people with passion and make a movie that will stand up against any $70 million movie.

I have a problem with the blatant celebrity exhibitionism that happens in this business and being sold purely as a brand.

When you look at some of the most respected actors there are and the crap that they're in... it didn't used to be that way.

I think The Exorcist is the best American horror movie ever made. Friedkin was at the top of his game.

I really tried to make movies I wanted to see. I thought that if I was good enough, somebody would always need me.

Mostly I do films that mainstream Hollywood wouldn't touch.

I have all this time between projects, and I'm not so sure that's a healthy thing. It's scary, because at 36 I'm woefully unqualified for anything else.

You know how many movies it took Tom Cruise before he was making 5, 6 million dollars? It probably took a billion dollars in box office.

I don't like people who use the press to advance themselves in a way that they haven't earned as an actor, performer or director.

Everybody acts like they're in a movie in most movies. That's why they stink.

The greatest writers have persistence.

If You believe in yourself you can reach everything you want.

The conqueror is regarded with awe the wise man commands our respect but it is only the benevolent man that wins our affection.

Can you write a book and have children at the same time? Yes, if you're content to do it very very slowly.

Physical fitness can neither be acquired by wishful thinking nor by outright purchase.

[On climate change:] What if it's all a hoax and we've created a better world for nothing?

Sometime I think; and sometime I am.

I try to jog in every city I visit, and I particularly enjoy harbour-front paths that let me ogle big ships, railroad bridges and the ruins of factories and warehouses.

If you look good, we look good.

I think Americans should have a policy of love. That should be the foreign policy, love. Export Love.