Chance is another name that we give to our mistakes. And all of the best things in my films are mistakes.

Filmmaking is a chance to live many lifetimes.

I never knew what I wanted, except that it was something I hadn't seen before.

[The Player is] not a truthful indictment of Hollywood. It's much uglier than I portrayed it, but nobody would've been interested if I'd shown just how sadistic, cruel and self-orientated it is.

Your own ego is the only trap that I think you can fall into.

I love fishing. You put that line in the water and you don't know what's on the other end. Your imagination is under there.

I don't think screenplay writing is the same as writing - I mean, I think it's blueprinting.

If you have a child who is seven feet tall, you don't cut off his head or his legs. You buy him a bigger bed and hope he plays basketball.

All of my films deal with the same thing: striving, socially and culturally, to stay alive.

What is an ending? There's no such thing. Death is the only ending.

I have never made a movie that's attracted a 14-year-old boy.

There was something so heavy about the burden of history, of the past. I wasn't sure I had it in me to keep looking back.

Friendship is Love without his wings!

No excuses and no sob stories. Life is full of excuses if you're looking. I have no time to gripe over misfortune. I don't waste time looking back.

Morality may keep you out of jail, but it takes the blood of Jesus Christ to keep you out of hell.

Morality should have to do with killing people or hurting them or stealing from them, but when it comes to adult choices, I don't see it.

I just don't think I'm that interesting. I don't think what I have to say is that interesting. To hear me go blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I mean, who... cares?

There's a certain urgency that comes from the records of the early 60s before overdubbing and multitracking came into play.

I've been more content with just who I am.

Love is life sharing, not for hurt, Love is alive both not ambiguous. Love is whole life, not an affair.

The troubles which have come upon us always seem more serious than those which are only threatening.