I love 'Chitty Chitty Bang Bang' and I love 'Bugsy Malone.' I haven't seen 'Bedknobs and Broomsticks' in a long time, but I remember loving it as a kid.

The more you travel, the better you get at it.

In my films that I've directed, and my work in commercials and videos, I've rarely used handheld. It's just not something I'm drawn to, but I've seen it done very well.

When I'm in London, Claridge's is a great favourite. I'm a big fan of art deco architecture and the rooms are extraordinary.

Recently, I was in Bernalda, my dad's ancestral home town in Italy. He has just refurbished a palazzo and turned it into a hotel, so we had my sister's wedding there. It was beautiful.

As a director myself, you really appreciate collaborating with people who are trying to help you find what you need and what you want.

I really value distinctive movies, movies that feel that they came from a person that was really something that they had conceived and they made and is a reflection of who they are.

A movie that I'm involved with and have a lot of love for, which is On The Road, does use a lot of handheld. It can be done beautifully. I'm proud of that. It's a very beautiful movie.

Sometimes in writing you have difficult periods and then other times it just flows.

Relationship movies are often made for a female audience.

As a director myself, you want to have colleagues and collaborators that respect your authority as the director. I'm very comfortable with that, and I've done a lot of work in second unit.

If only I wasn't an atheist, I could get away with anything. You'd just ask for forgiveness and then you'd be forgiven. It sounds much better than having to live with guilt.

Some maniac butcher is trying to hack away your balls.

And I plan to write a sequel to Dragon Rider.

Common sense is calculation applied to life.

The measure of all love is its giving. The measure of the love of God is the cross of Christ.

In a world filled with misery and uncertainty, it is a great comfort to know that, in the end, there is light in the darkness.

[To the patronizing train conductor who had twice said, 'Auntie, give me your ticket':] Which of my sister's sons are you?

Actually, after the release of the Bond film, the producers came back to me to offer me another one, but I didn't have any juice left for an immediate encore.

Though I often run out of courage and good sense, stubbornness keeps me going.

Dangling a carrot in front of a donkey—or anyone else for that matter—is not nice, and not fair, unless you eventually plan to give it up to them.