When people are still getting pleasure from something that you did 30 years ago, it makes you feel good. I always say it makes an old man happy.

I tend not to look back. It's confusing.

I did have an offer to direct one of the Alien movies but I wasn't too excited about all the effects work.

Some say Hollywood movies that are made about boxing are just metaphors for other things, I think I've made one that's actually about boxing and not a metaphor.

Naturally we need black men to give this movie serious credibility.

I've always wanted to do a boxing movie.

Well, I'm about to do another western, a pilot for HBO this fall.

You as an audience can look at these things as films, but I remember them as social experiences.

I wouldn't not want to be a director and write as I wouldn't not to want to be a writer and direct movies.

I mean no film is beyond criticism, but I think we've made a very modest movie.

I get a great high from writing.

Books are more precious than jewels. She truly believed this. What did a diamond bring you? A momentary flash of brilliance. A diamond scintillated for second a book could scintillate forever.

You have to learn when it’s best to delegate those hard physical jobs to others while you tackle the heavy thinking.

Life is about connection, not perfection.

Theories are patterns without value. What counts is action.

Earth produces nothing worse than an ungrateful man.

Somewhere in the depths of solitude, beyond wilderness and freedom, lay the trap of madness.

No man can become a permanent success without taking others along with him.

It doesn't matter what your ideology is, people don't like to [be] lied to.

I never had any master plan about directing, and I don't really write.

Sometimes there's nothing you can do. [...] Sometimes they don't have enough to fight with.