Reality, like God and History, tends to direct people to wherever they want to go.

One of the surest signs of the Philistine is his reverence for the superior tastes of those who put him down.

Movies are so rarely great art that if we cannot appreciate great trash we have very little reason to be interested in them.

The first prerogative of an artist in any medium is to make a fool of himself.

Irresponsibility is part of the pleasure of all art; it is the part the schools cannot recognize.

If I never saw another fistfight or car chase or Doberman attack, I wouldn't have any feeling of loss. And that goes for Rottweilers, too.

The critical task is necessarily comparative, and younger people do not truly know what is new

When a picture can't make it on its own, the producers pull in a 'controversial' message - the way a couple whose marriage is falling apart decide to have a baby.

What this generation was bred to at television's knees was not wisdom, but cynicism.

If there is any test that can be applied to movies, it's that the good ones never make you feel virtuous.

Protagonists are always loners, almost by definition.

He released her arm and crossed his own over his chest. "I'm trying not to jump to conclusions. Spit it out.""I'm more of a swallowing kind of a girl."Holy hell.

It's never what you say but how you make it sound sincere.

Photography is like a moment, an instant. You need a half-second to get the photo. So it's good to capture people when they are themselves.

This is a ruthless world and one must be ruthless to cope with it.

It was more freedom than I think most people get when they're starting out - or even when they're not starting out. He [John Cassavetes] did his thing and I did whatever I thought.

Wine is earth's answer to the sun.

What's my dilemma here? Am I making entertainment or am I making art? What am I saying? At the end of the day, cinema is entertainment for millions of people, but for me it's expression.

I am not temperamental. I just know what I want and if I don't have it, I try to get it.

I'm a lifelong bachelor, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't marry the right woman.

Love is the supreme good; it is the overflowing life, the giving of ourselves to noble ends and causes.