When we were trying to get the money for Driving Miss Daisy, everyone kept saying no one could direct it well enough to entertain an audience for 100 minutes essentially watching three people chatting in the kitchen.

At HBO, they seem to be well-informed. They make what I think are really quite mature films.

With Cold Sassy Tree having its first production, I saw no necessity to do anything other than produce it with the correct setting.

Tender Mercies is a very low-budget film, but it was a huge budget compared to anything I had done in Australia. My fee for Tender Mercies was something like five times all of my Australian films combined.

The music of the most popular operas is so highly esteemed, it can stand endless revivals.

When I was 24 I went to Nigeria and it was such a culture shock, growing up in Australia and suddenly being the only white man in this unit full of black men.

Everyone has seen photographs of Mexicans wearing those big sombreros. When you come to Mexico, the astonishing thing is, nobody wears these hats at all.

There's a bright spot in every dark cloud.

I'd really been interested in opera when I was about 16, and I really like staging them.

When the music and the characters are flawlessly synchronized, the opera develops an emotional force that movies and plays cannot match.

I didn't get upset because I wasn't nominated, but I was a little surprised.

In Australia, they set up a special fund to kick films off. It was quite an enlightened sort of move. You could go to this government bureau with scripts and and get finance for films.

He's wrong. That's why his films look so terrible.

For a director, the most challenging scenes are the dialogue scenes.

The number of opera houses around the world and the high attendance rates show that opera an art form that is more popular than ever.

Quite a few operas are still being commissioned around the world, although nothing apart from audience popularity can ensure more than a few performances.

It is essential to do everything possible to attract young people to opera so they can see that it is not some antiquated art form but a repository of the most glorious music and drama that man has created.

In my view, the operas of Carlisle Floyd will find a place in the permanent repertoire.

Directing an opera is similar to directing a play. The singing must not get in the way of the drama.

In silent movies, they tended to put the camera down, and everybody walked in front of it and acted, and then they all walked off. Cutting was quite infrequent.

On stage, the audience watches from a fixed viewpoint and the director cannot retake something he doesn't like. It has to work straight through.

When we were trying to get the money for Driving Miss Daisy, everyone kept saying no one could direct it well enough to entertain an audience for 100 minutes essentially watching three people chatting in the kitchen.

It's not enough to hit the notes. There is no point in the singers just standing there and sounding wonderful if they're not connecting with the characters they are portraying.

Film is shot in fragments, and the same moments can be shot again and again until the director is satisfied.

Perhaps the most difficult thing is shooting scenes set 6,000 feet up in the mountains of Mexico.

I don't rehearse films as much as opera or theatre. When I began directing films I thought a long rehearsal was a good idea. Experience showed me that the best performance was often left in a rehearsal room.

With a film, I do my best to understand the author's intentions and try to bring the characters to life.

There were movies that always made me want to be a director. You see brilliant scenes and the way the emotions were handled. I thought, I'd really like to do that.

In opera, everyone's watching from a fixed viewpoint, and that really challenges you. Lighting, the sets, stage groupings, the music-but doesn't relate too much to film.

The difference between talking on your cell phone while driving and speaking with a passenger is huge. The person on the other end of the cell phone is chattering away, oblivious.

No doubt Western civilization has in the past been full of wars and revolutions, and the national elements in our culture, even when they were ignored, always provided an unconscious driving force of passion and aggressive self-assertion.

I miss Saturday morning, rolling out of bed, not shaving, getting into my car with my girls, driving to the supermarket, squeezing the fruit, getting my car washed, taking walks.

When I got outta High School I was driving a truck. I was just a poor boy from Memphis, Memphis.

It seems that whatever we do is somehow beyond reproach - murder, rape, drunk driving - as long as we go on a TV show and apologize.

The colors I choose there was to paint the first hotel, the Disneyland Hotel. Because of the cloudy sky we had in Paris, it had to be a particular kind of color who will fight those grey days. And also something you can see when you're driving up 'There it is! We're arriving!'

Certain people in the United States are driving nails into this structure of our relationship, then cutting off the heads. So the Soviets must use their teeth to pull them out.

When you've been driving in the top category for 10 years, you're obviously not a kid any more. You know, I'm married now and I've got two kids. That let's you know you're getting older.

If it were up to the candidates for president on the Republican side, we would be driving foreign cars. They would have let the auto industry in America go down the tubes.

Composing is like driving down a foggy road toward a house. Slowly you see more details of the house-the color of the slates and bricks, the shape of the windows. The notes are the bricks and the mortar of the house.

This would not be a problem if I were driving a snowplow.

Living with a conscience is like driving with the brakes on.

Americans are making coffee a bigger part of their lives, expanding attitudes and behaviors that are driving new levels of consumption.

Nowhere in this country should we have laws that permit drinking and driving or drinking in vehicles that are on American highways. This is not rocket science. We know how to prevent this, and 36 states do.

I was 16 years old, driving to LA, and sleeping in my car, just trying to make it happen.

One morning, about four o'clock, I was driving my car just about as fast as I could. I thought, Why am I out this time of night? I was miserable, and it came to me: I'm falling in love with somebody I have no right to fall in love with.

Baseball is like driving, it's the one who gets home safely that counts.

I think it's important that people think about what they are doing and that includes what they are eating. I am 61 now and attitudes towards drinking and driving have changed radically since I was a student. People change their notion of what is responsible. They will increasingly ask about the carbon content of their food.

Take air quality in the United States today: It's about 30 percent better than it was 25 years ago, even though there are now more people driving more cars.

I am endlessly busy, bringing up five young kids, and trying to keep up with the three older ones. I still spend most of my life driving car pools.