"As a filmmaker, I'm not interested in 9/11 it's too small, history overwhelms it. The history of the world is like: He kills me, I kill him, only with different cosmetics and different castings. So in 2001, some fanatics killed some Americans, and now some Americans are killing some Iraqis. And in my childhood, some Nazis killed Jews. And now, some Jewish people and some Palestinians are killing each other. Political questions, if you go back thousands of years, are ephemeral, not important. History is the same thing over and over again."

“The talent for being happy is appreciating and liking what you have, instead of what you don't have.”

“Eternity is very long, especially towards the end.”

“On bisexuality: It immediately doubles your chances for a date on Saturday night.”

“If I don't kill him he'll make war all through Europe. But murder... the most foul of all crimes. What would Socrates say? All those Greeks were homosexuals. Boy, they must have had some wild parties. I bet they all took a house together in Crete for the summer. A: Socrates is a man. B: All men are mortal. C: All men are Socrates. That means all men are homosexuals. Heh... I'm not a homosexual. Once, some cossacks whistled at me. I happen to have the kind of body that excites both persuasions. You know, some men are heterosexual and some men are bisexual and some men don't think about sex at all, you know... they become lawyers.”

“I'd rather she grew up here than grew up as an orphan, you know I can tolerate anybody's orphans but my own.”

“Sex without love is an empty experience, but as empty experiences go, it's one of the best.”