Samuel Fuller pictures were both written and shot in such an unusual way that his voice came through loud and clear, and it made a big impression on me.

I had a checkered early career, for sure, with a lot of very unhappy experiences where pictures got taken away, re-cut, re-titled... all the nightmares one hears about.

What you care about [movie] is whether it's moving you, or whether you're caught up in it.

Hollywood, of course, is the city of illusion.

You can dress it up, but it comes down to the fact that a movie is only as good as its script.

Whereas to write, all you need is paper and an idea, so I felt that writing might be my stepping stone.

Self-awareness and self-esteem. Those aren't female issues, those are human issues.

Put simply, there are many people who want to make movies and very few opportunities for them to do it.

I grew up as a reader as well as a movie-lover, so many of the novelists I admired - and so many of the great filmmakers I loved - were self-taught.

Consequently, it's so gratifying to then make a picture that's successful and gives you leverage to have better circumstances than you've ever had, before the next time out.

Consequently, their school [film-school ] was the school of life, and it was very much reflected in their work.

Would you give up the craft of your hands, and the passion of your heart, and the hunger of your mind, to buy safety?

I never put myself out there as an employment agency.

It's wrong to criticize government without offering a possible alternative.

Do you see how you hurt me, baby? So I hurt you too. Then we both get so blue. I am on a lonely road and I am traveling, looking for the key to set me free.

If I had a time machine I would go back 30 years and show up at my grandmother's apartment before the gargantuan meals she would serve and I would help her.

A positive mental attitude is the right mental attitude.

I am, and have always been, a pornographic angel.

...it is better to have a mouthful of poison than a secret of the heart.

Pain comes from the darkness. And we call it wisdom. It is pain.

And the first king was a lucky soldier.