I was raised a Catholic and when you're raised a Catholic they don't teach you to think for yourself. You're taught not to think too deeply about things.

I was raised a Catholic and when you're raised a Catholic they don't teach you to think for yourself. You're taught not to think too deeply about things.

A script is not a piece of literature it's a process.

As an old-time New Yorker, it's not that I miss the '70s and '80s or whatever. I miss the fact that there was a certain kind of energy that exists when people can live for nothing.

As barbaric is we are, it's a miracle we haven't blown ourselves off the face of the earth so far.

But I'm never gonna get to a point in my life where what it costs to shoot a movie is going to determine what it is. The limits of my imagination is the only thing that's gonna stop me.

Certain actors wanna get paid, they think working in a low-budget movie is being ripped off. But for others it's like, 'Yes, let's do it.'

I don't care if I get $50 million to do a film.

I don't have a problem with Werner Herzog.

I don't know what DVD commentaries are about. I'd like to strangle the person who came up with that concept.

I was born in the Bronx, and then my father moved us to the country at an early age.

I'm a lapsed Buddhist like I'm a lapsed Catholic. I take it to a point.

I'm about my characters.

I'm not a big fan of talking about dying. And then I make a movie where I kill everybody.

It's funny, the hardest thing to do is to make something look like it's fast, loose and improvised, and get somebody to laugh.

It's only Western civilization that, God forbid, you talk about dying, when it's the only thing we know for certain, right? Everyone's going to die, so what's the big problem? 'Oh, God. Don't talk about it. Don't think about it.' I mean, I'm one of them. I'm not a big fan of talking about dying.

Life is what happens when you're doing other things, right?

Listen, anybody who has a film festival has the right to show what they want.

Making money is not gonna change anything about what I am, except I won't answer the door.

Most filmmaking is about shaking hands and just starting.

Mulberry Street was the beating heart of the Italian-American experience, but you don't find those gangsters now. I live with a bunch of yuppies and models.

My existence is about making movies, so I've just got to rock and roll with the punches. You want to make movies on telephones, I'm there.

That's the thing about making a movie: You never finish editing. They just take it away from you.

The last day of your life is still going to be a day.

The secret is not to make a film that causes something like Virginia Tech to happen. The secret is to make a film that stops it happening.

Where I come from you're not raised to think on your own. It's not that you're pushed to read the Bible. The Bible is read to you.

With 'New Rose Hotel,' I knew that I was getting paid a $100,000 fee to write, produce, and direct, and that's all I was going to get.

People I look to: again, Hank Aaron, man you challenged the status quo and the records of the game. Monumental feats in an era where people didn't like that.

As for what other people think of me, I could worry about that every day, but choose not to.

Sliding headfirst is the safest way to get to the next base, I think, and the fastest. You don't lose your momentum, and there's one more important reason I slide headfirst, it gets my picture in the paper.

Artists are overcompensating with this aggressive, energetic, hyperstimulating music - it's like someone shaking you. But it can't move people on an emotional level.

Russia! Russia... Everything in you is open, desolate and level; your squat towns barely protrude in the midst of the plains like dots, like counters; there is nothing to tempt or enchant the onlooker's gaze. But what is this inscrutable, mysterious force that draws me to you?

The British have always been madly overambitious and from one angle it can seem like bravery but from another it looks suspiciously like a lack of foresight.

Novel writing is solitary work.

The 12 step chocoholics program Never be more than 12 steps away from chocolate

We all need God in certain ways, you know. And I certainly fall short in a lot of categories. And it's at those times that I need much more help than most.

Happiness aint a thing in itself its only a contrast with something that aint pleasant. And so as soon as the novelty is over and the force of the contrast dulled it aint happiness any longer and you have to get something fresh.

It's nice to be able to do more and to always challenge myself.

'Recluse' is a code word generated by journalists... meaning, 'doesn't like to talk to reporters.'

Someone you haven't even met yet is wondering what it'd be like to know someone like you.

I have nothing to lose but something to gain.

I loved 'Rock Lobster.' I probably heard 'Rock Lobster' first at a party or dance. Then we would do the Rock Lobster - get down on the floor and do the whole dance. I thought that was really cool and exciting, that there was actually a band that had their own dance at that point.

Never lose a chance of saying a kind word.

If the only ideas you had were your own, you'd be very limited.

There are people whose watch stops at a certain hour and who remain permanently at that age.

If you miss the present moment, you miss your appointment with life. That is very serious!

Pilates is my favorite meditative way to get in shape. I don't like the gym and I don't like running, so I just lay on my Pilates reformer. It's great.

When you have 13 horns, and one is soloing, you have 12 people to play the richest, fullest chord you could ever imagine behind that solo.

The first war movie I ever saw was 'Platoon,' and I was eight months pregnant. So my husband, producer Charles Roven, wasn't sure I'd make it.