I didn't have the problem of finding myself at 45 on the wrong course - I always wanted to be a film director.

I was not a collective person or a bohemian; I was an elitist.

The world was like a huge red carpet out ahead of me to be walked on. And it stretched on and on, no end.

What's called a difficult decision is a difficult decision because either way you go there are penalties.

The real challenge is not simply to survive. Hell, anyone can do that. It’s to survive as yourself, undiminished.

Look for the contradictions in every character, especially in your heroes and villains. No one should be what they first seem to be. Surprise the audience.

Take it from a director: if you get an actor that Sandy Meisner has trained, you've been blessed.

Whatever hysteria exists is inflamed by mystery, suspicion and secrecy. Hard and exact facts will cool it.

I knew the exuberance of playing before an admiring audience and hearing my secret voice.

You've got to keep fighting; you've got to risk your life every six months to stay alive.

Wonder is our need today, not information.

What would life be if we didn't shake and wake ourselves up once and a while

I used to have all of my ducks in a row. Now I'm happy to just have them in my vicinity.

What makes 'good tape'? That is the question that has consumed my life for the past 20 years, and I have an answer for you

You could be as vulgar as you want, as long as three tiny spots were covered.

I think referendums are fantastic as long as the question is phrased in a way which is not meant to deliberately confuse or confound people.

I don't belong to any country clubs. I don't have this big circle of friends. Where I make my friends is where I work.

I try to counter what Donald Trump says that might have an effect on somebody.

Of course slavery and the Muslims were deeply implicated in the slave trade, Islam was an Imperialist religion which destroyed Christianity in the Near East, yet nobody mentions those facts.

I don't make money on the road, and so there's less and less incentive for me to do it when I don't have that adolescent desire for whatever it is, glory or fame.

The Nobel Prize gives you an opportunity to make a fool of yourself in public.