My principal job is to make interesting and entertaining films, and I'm not proud of which format or which particular technique I use. I just wanted the film to look good.

It's not easy to strap yourself down to a desk and bash on a keyboard when you know you can direct lots of films, because directing films is fun and interactive and gregarious. Writing isn't.

We're not unique. We're quite volatile as individuals, but that doesn't work exponentially when we are together. Relationships are about eating humble pie.

I'm not under too much of an illusion of how smart or un-smart I am because filmmaking ultimately is about teamwork.

If somebody has a better idea than me, I'll take it if it surpasses what we have on the page because at the end of the day, it's me that takes the credit anyway!

If you change the rules on what controls you... you will change the rules on what you can control.

I got into film-making because I was interested in making entertaining movies, which I felt there was a lack of.

The best thing to do is find one person in your life and try to love them unconditionally. If you've accomplished that, you've accomplished a lot.

We can all be conned but at what point do we realize that we're being conned and to what point do we allow ourselves to be conned?

I think there's a natural system in your own head about how much violence the scene warrants. It's not an intellectual process, it's an instinctive process.

I got too fed up with films that didn't make you think. I liked the idea of one that you'd have to be dancing around with. I like my mind to be engaged when I watch a film.

One of the most powerful lessons in life is to recognize that no one can give you power, and many people don’t want you to have it. You have to find the courage to seize it, own it and hold on!

Words had become overnight just little coins, insignificant and unfreighted, to be exchanged for ribbons, buttons, for an apple or an egg.

...Jesus responds to almost every question he's asked with...a question."What do you think? How do you read it?" he asks, again and again and again.

The point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as not to seem worth stating, and to end with something so paradoxical that no one will believe it.

If you know how a man deals with his money, how he gets it, spends it, keeps it, shares it, you know one of the most important things about him.

I am iron butterfly ... / I am she/we / of flesh / and iron / and silk wings, / healing, flying / into a gentle blue sky.

It's a truth universally acknowledged that an FBI special agent in possession of great skill and talent is likely to engage in trash talk every now and then.

My experiences in film and theatre in the States have been much more rigorous-in England there's an environment of, Let's try this.

We were the best team in the world: European champions in 1984, we qualified without a hitch and 86 was to be the swan song for a very experienced side.

I havent really thought about where to scatter my ashes when the time comes, but I doubt that it would be in space.