You always have to be ahead of the audience so that they have to always catch up and know the movie's not quite going exactly where you think it's going, or expecting it to be going.

Narcissism and self-deception are survival mechanisms without which many of us might just jump off a bridge.

Some people will of course accuse me of misanthropy and cynicism. I can't celebrate humanity but I'm not out to indict it either. I just want to expose certain truths.

A palindrome is a word or pattern that instead of developing in different directions it folds in on itself so that the beginning and end mirror each other, that they are the same.

The ability to take pleasure in one's life is a skill and is a kind of intelligence.

When I want to show the kind of meanness people are capable of, to make it believable I find I have to tone it down. It's in real life that people are over the top.

So far, at least, I haven't found a way to tell my kind of stories without making them both sad and funny.

Usually the audience has no idea that the censored version of whatever movie they're watching isn't the original.

Casting is everything. If you get the right people they make you look good.

Part of it has to do with this business of being approached in public. I have a distinctive look - it's partly the glasses I wear - and people seem to remember me once they've seen me.

And that's just what I'm saying. I would never want to be like certain people, who change the way they dress, go out in disguise, wear a big floppy hat and dark shades. I would hate that.

Be flexible and adapt easily to new things

By far, the greatest danger of Artificial Intelligence is that people conclude too early that they understand it.

It's time to stop the raid on the Social Security trust fund and start allowing Americans to invest their Social Security taxes in personal savings accounts.

Every director works differently.

And there is such a thing as a decathlon high. It's like a rock rolling down hill, picking up momentum. You get better and better.

When I liberate myself, I liberate others. If you don't speak out ain't nobody going to speak out for you.

Indeterminism does not confer freedom on us: I would feel that my freedom was impaired if I thought that a quantum mechanical trigger in my brain might cause me to leap into the garden and eat a slug

I always loved the challenge. When something new happened, I always used to get quite excited.

Man, is an indivisible entity, an integrated unit of mind and body.

Contempt for an assailant is best shown by bravery in action.