I wanted to shoot straight, mainstream, somehow off-beat. Not only realistic West, which is quite unfamiliar to the world's population - even to a lot of Americans.

We need storytelling. Otherwise life just goes on and on, like the number Pi.

I see a movie as a way of learning about the world, about myself, and learning about my relationship with people and art.

I think the American West really attracts me because it's romantic. The desert, the empty space, the drama.

My hometown was one of the major U.S. Air Force bases.

I think people are universal.

Sometimes, you have to get angry to get things done.

Every movie I make. That’s my hideout, the place I don’t quite understand, but feel most at home.

When there is a strong woman character in a story - that always grabs me

I think great romance needs great obstacles and textures.

Making movies is a way of understanding myself and the world.

Words, words, words! They shut one off from the universe. Three quarters of the time one’s never in contact with things, only with the beastly words that stand for them.

Ecstacy stripped away the user's inhibitions to self-expression. On E, lies are inefficient, and the peculiarities or weaknesses they are meant to obscure no longer seem like offenses against nature.

Either grant me the bliss of the ignorant or give me the strength to bear the knowledge.

One time when I was visiting The Vatican I got the Pope really drunk, and then while he was sleeping I put his hand in the holy water.

I'm not a clone, and I'm not a minion.

It's perfectly healthy-encouraged, even- to have an idea tomorrow that contradicted your idea today

Get power but don't admit to it. Do it by stealth. There's a whole trend of Rhodes scholars who will be politicians around the world.

The ascent is the aim of your life and to perfect it is your job.

All religions are good 'in principle' - but unfortunately this abstract Good has only rarely prevented their practitioners from behaving like bastards.

Explosion without an objective', declared Miles Blundell, 'is politics in its purest form'.