“I think America right now is looking for somebody who appeals to every faction.”

I think that maybe that’s my weakness, in that I don’t know how to do it, so I just do what I do and try to do it as passionately and as well as I can.

I’d like to do a romantic comedy.

I think they are very important because westerns have a code and a symbolism.

There are different reasons to make movies.

I would love to get great performances from actors as a director, because that’s what I’m always looking for, a director that’s going to help me go places I’ve never been before.

You can go left, you can go right, I don’t give a damn. Just make a decision.

You have respect and reverence for your characters and the fact that you’re going to epitomize that person for the rest of their lives. They’re going to be judged based on your performance by millions of people. You have a certain responsibility.

I think women can be as cruel as men, and men as tender as women, and vice versa.

I can think of films that I’m producing right now that are extremely hard-hitting, graphic films, that nobody necessarily wants to see, graphic in terms of violence, of adult content and racial and historical subject matter.

Filmmaking is a difficult process. There are the logistics of making a film. You have to do your part, and then change the entire thing around to do someone else’s part. A lot of the magic is lost, in between that, and you have to figure out how to get it back.

I owned a 1972 Plymouth Valiant that we bought for $125. It was infested with cockroaches and geckos – it was its own little ecosystem.

But I guess I like playing flawed guys ’cause it gives a place for the characters to go.

I got as much information as I could, so I wouldn’t look stupid, but this is a post 9/11 world and there’s only so much you can do with the FBI in terms of research.

I think every actor wants to be an FBI or cop at one point.

The day you stop caring what other people think of you is the day your life begins.

The only morality in a cruel world is chance.

America betrays its friends. It sets them up and betrays them. I’d rather be America’s enemy.

There are three categories of people in America: those who are afraid, those who don’t know enough to be afraid, and those who know their Bibles.

And when they have done their job, America must look after and honor its veterans.

We feel strongly that the spirit characteristic of America at its noblest, above all the pursuit of higher learning, cannot admit of any conditions .

The passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 represented precisely such a hope – that America had learned from its past and acted to secure a better tomorrow.

Unfortunately, cinema critics are very few in America, 400-500 people, but there are more critics of Iran.

I don’t believe there are two sides to every argument. I think the facts are the center. And watching the news abandon the facts in favor of “fairness” is what’s troubling to me.

In America, you have this kind of individualism and in the West, essentially, you have this individualism – this idea of my own personal fulfillment.