"When I'm directing a great dramatic scene, part of me is saying, "Thank God I don't have to do that." Because I know how fucking hard it is to act. It's the middle of the night. It's freezing. You gotta do this scene. You gotta get it up to get to that point. And yet, as a director, you've got to get the actors to that point. It's hard either way."

"I remember an old proverb. It says that youth thinks itself wise just as drunk men think themselves sober. Youth is not wise! Youth knows nothing about life! Youth knows nothing about anything except …"

"I think that the best of artists are androgynous in a sense. If a man is a very macho male, I don't know whether he'll make a very good director, he may make a very good craftsman. Or if a woman is a …"

"Most people understand the need for neutrality. The real struggle is not between the right and the left — that's where most people assume — but it's between the party of the thoughtful and the party o…"

"It's the old American Double Standard, ya know: Say one thing, do somethin' different. And of course this country is founded on the double standard, that's our history! We were founded on a very basic…"