What I felt at that time - we're talking about '61 - was that I couldn't remember seeing a film that reflected the age we were living in.

The cinema is there to heighten the imagination; I have always tried to make sure it does so.

To be successful, you really have to put your ego in the background and try to be diplomatic to achieve what you want to achieve.

My house is not James Bondish at all. Sorry.

I always wanted to design for films.

Remember, the early '60s in London was something - which must have been like Berlin in the '30s when the arts flourished. You didn't have the differences in class, and so on.

One thing that I think works in 'Casablanca' and which I've lectured a lot about - in terms of what I've been trying to achieve as a designer - is the film's creation of its own form of reality.

I'm an incurable romantic, and 'Casablanca''s one of the most romantic pictures I've ever seen - the combination of Bogart and Bergman is just magical.

With Kubrick and most film directors, they are in complete control, but one can influence them.

My mother and father were interested in the arts.

It takes courage to stay young, to make your enthusiasms work for you. Don't let anyone drag you down.

Earth's crammed with heaven, And every common bush afire with God: But only he who sees takes off his shoes.

Everything isn't black and white, but for me it might as well be.

All experiences are either positive for your brain or negative. If you maximize the positive ones, you are shaping the brain you want to being you the world you want.

Rome is one of my favourite cities in the world.

What is will? It is a decision. It is a decision to be something. We really aren't anything in particular. We can be anything. That's the good news.

When man does not have firm, calm lines on the horizon of his life- mountain and forest lines, as it were- then a man's innermost will becomes agitated, preoccupied, and wistful.

I'm still compulsively interested in women. It's funny, I've always compulsively photographed women. I still do.

I have to deal with seven ex-stray dogs, and one ex-stray cat. One dog is nearing nineteen years old. Before I go to teach, he likes for me to tell him bedtime stories.

Once introduced discontinuity, once challenge any of the properties of visual space, and as they flow from each other, the whole conceptual framework collapses.

I think it's important to do a good job and not to feel that you've got to make grand gestures, but just to get on and deliver.