a steady diet of mass culture is a form of deprivation.

One of the surest signs of the Philistine is his reverence for the superior tastes of those who put him down.

Movies are so rarely great art that if we cannot appreciate great trash we have very little reason to be interested in them.

The first prerogative of an artist in any medium is to make a fool of himself.

Irresponsibility is part of the pleasure of all art; it is the part the schools cannot recognize.

If I never saw another fistfight or car chase or Doberman attack, I wouldn't have any feeling of loss. And that goes for Rottweilers, too.

The critical task is necessarily comparative, and younger people do not truly know what is new

When a picture can't make it on its own, the producers pull in a 'controversial' message - the way a couple whose marriage is falling apart decide to have a baby.

What this generation was bred to at television's knees was not wisdom, but cynicism.

If there is any test that can be applied to movies, it's that the good ones never make you feel virtuous.

Protagonists are always loners, almost by definition.

Life is a series of surprises and would not be worth taking or keeping if it were not.

Making movies is a dangerous job. Because you are always the one who stands at the center of the universe when making movies.

Aptitude found in the understanding and is often inherited. Genius coming from reason and imagination, rarely.

I would prefer to be a citizen of an independent country rather than Emperor of an enslaved one.

Music is a science which should have definite rules; these rules should be drawn from an evident principle; and this principle cannot really be known to us without the aid of mathematics.

Just those three words, said and meant. I love you. They were quite hopeless. He said it as he might have said, I have cancer. His fairy story.

As a person, I'm anti-violence.

He cast off his friends as a huntsman his pack, For he knew when he pleas'd he could whistle them back.

"I fly from pleasure," said the prince, "because pleasure has ceased to please; I am lonely because I am miserable, and am unwilling to cloud with my presence the happiness of others."

Do what you are best at and let others take care of the rest.