To make great movies, there is an element of risk. You have to say, 'Well, I am going to make this film, and it is not really a sure thing.'

I think cinema, movies, and magic have always been closely associated. The very earliest people who made film were magicians.

When I was about 9, I had polio, and people were very frightened for their children, so you tended to be isolated. I was paralyzed for a while, so I watched television.

An essential element of any art is risk. If you don't take a risk then how are you going to make something really beautiful, that hasn't been seen before?

I used to love going into local hardware stores, to look at little things they made locally. Nowadays it's harder, though you can still do it in Vietnam.

I had an older brother who was very interested in literature, so I had an early exposure to literature, and and theater. My father sometimes would work in musical comedies.

There's nothing creative about living within your means.

Anything you build on a large scale or with intense passion invites chaos.

We were raised in an Italian-American household, although we didn't speak Italian in the house. We were very proud of being Italian, and had Italian music, ate Italian food.

You don't have to specialize - do everything that you love and then, at some time, the future will come together for you in some form.

If the movie works, nobody notices the mistakes... If the movie doesn't work, the only thing people notice are mistakes.

Do the most difficult thing if that is what will pay you. Dust the Rust if you Must. Success never comes with ease.

There's an ease that I have living in Australia. The best things about Sydney are free: the sunshine's free, and the harbour's free, and the beach is free.

I bend my knee to no man. Unless I choose to.

I'm pretty lucky. I don't get too many haters.

Every man is the maker of his own fortune

Ill-fitting grammar are like ill-fitting shoes. You can get used to it for a bit, but then one day your toes fall off and you can't walk to the bathroom.

Letters should be easy and natural, and convey to the persons to whom we send them just what we should say to the persons if we were with them.

I've... learned that it's a hell of a lot easier to just build something than to try to convince somebody who doesn't believe it's possible.

Poles understand perhaps better than anyone the consequences of making toothless warnings to brutal tyrants and terrorist regimes.

We looked like a parade barely moving toward YOU MIGHT GET LOST.