Stories of friendship are very interesting to me. Artificial families are something I like to explore. Whether it's a bunch of guys or a bunch of ladies, there's something interesting about that.

[If] you want to learn something about somebody, get into a fistfight. You'll learn more in five minutes than you will in five weeks of conversations. It's basic.

I'm not a film-school guy. I was a high-school dropout. I was on a nuclear submarine. I was an electrician. I was a house painter. So if you get in my face, I'm going to fight you.

Well, as far as film, either you're making a film or you're making videos. Digital capture is always trying to emulate the range and look of film. I believe personally that film has more.

I like to do stuff real and practical and in camera, as much as possible. I like old school filmmaking.

To operate а tank as a crew, it's not about five individuals. It has to be one organism, composed of five people.

I feel like, as a filmmaker, I'm at my strongest when I write the script and when it comes from me, out of whole cloth. My best work has always been self-generated.

You never know what you have until you put it in front of an audience. That's the truth. That's the truth of filmmaking and that's why you make movies, for an audience to, hopefully, enjoy it.

I think a good director can embrace any genre and it's the kind of thing where you always want to do something different. You always want to challenge yourself.

I'm one of those big believers that the movie comes together in the way it's supposed to be and that movies are fated to become what they become.

My mantra is "Better is better".

The old man smiled. 'I shall not die of a cold, my son. I shall die of having lived.

If you are to succeed in anything, you must first be able to imagine it.

The Universe is the periodical manifestation of this unknown Absolute Essence.

Both the ancestry and posterity of Grief go further than the ancestry and posterity of Joy.

If history's any judge, you might have democratic leanings in a revolution but that doesn't necessarily mean that the revolution is going to end up with democratic results.

I'm so fat and I'm so depressed; last night I tried to hang myself - but the rope broke.

Nature in her green, tranquil woods heals and soothes all afflictions.

Most plain girls are virtuous because of the scarcity of opportunity to be otherwise.

God don't like complaints.

On a related subject, Signore Pazzi, I must confess to you: I'm giving serious thought to eating your wife.